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On December 5, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2024 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event.

Ahead, producer Mary Parent tells IndieWire that for Visionary Award honoree Denis Villenueve, writing and directing “Dune: Part Two” is part of a childhood dream realized.

It is no secret by now that bringing “Dune” to the big screen — a book nearly everyone thought was unadaptable — had been a dream of Denis Villeneuve’s pretty much his whole life. Remarkably, he was driven to realize his vision of Dune before he even understood how it could be possible. As a kid from a small town in Quebec, long...

Oscar Isaac admits he may have been wrong. He didn’t initially understand the casting of his “Dune: Part Two” co-star Timothée Chalamet as the great folk icon Bob Dylan in director James Mangold’s upcoming musical biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

According to Isaac, Chalamet was telling him and their fellow “Dune” actors Josh Brolin and Stephen McKinley Henderson about the project on the set of the epic sci-fi sequel — and Isaac, a devoted Dylan fan, had raised his eyebrow about the whole thing. Set in New York in the early 1960s, “A Complete Unknown” chronicles the early life and times of Dylan who arrived in Greenwich Village an enigmatic, freewheelin’ 19-year-old from Minnesota and forever changed the folk community.

“My first thought was… sounds like a really bad idea. I mean, it’s Dylan. It’s the holy of holies for me. It just didn’t sound right,” Isaac...

Nearly a decade ago, Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser was hanging out at one of Roger and James Deakins’ famous barbecues when he was introduced to a French-Canadian man he didn’t immediately recognize. But as soon as he put a face to the name “Denis Villeneuve,” he instantly called to mind two of the filmmaker’s critically acclaimed Canadian films, Polytechnique (2009) and Incendies (2010), as well as his American debut, Prisoners (2013), that he shot with the co-host of that day’s festivities, Roger Deakins. So Fraser and Villeneuve got to know each other that day, before going their separate ways for a few years.

During the intervening time period, Fraser photographed a handful of projects including the first Star Wars spinoff film, Rogue One (2016), as well as the first live-action Star Wars series in The Mandalorian. And then, in 2018, Villeneuve reached out regarding the Dp position on his forthcoming adaptation of...

Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sci-fi film "Blade Runner 2049" is a worthy follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1982 flick "Blade Runner." Both presented unique and beautifully photographed sci-fi landscapes that were unique to the genre, and gorgeous to behold. They were the kinds of sci-fi landscapes that college-aged cineastes love to use as their laptop wallpapers. Additionally, both "Blade Runners" contained a few notably punchy action setpieces nestled in between steamroller-paced scenes of sorrowful contemplation. Also, both were infused with the same flavor of navel-gazing angst that feels incredibly profound when you're 16. Villeneuve's film outstripped Scott's in that it was a full 46 minutes longer.

"Blade Runner 2049" was Villenueve's ninth feature film as a director, having established his aesthetic in Canada with films like "Polytechnique" and "Incendies," and who became an international superstar with the success of films like "Prisoners" and "Sicario." Villeneuve's films tend to feature a very particular type of hazy,...

For those who may not be aware, Denis Villeneuve started his career in Quebec long before he became a big Hollywood director. One of the biggest directors ever to emerge from this Canadian province (where some of us working for JoBlo – including yours truly – live), Villeneuve started to break through internationally with his films Polytechnique and Incendies. These movies led to his American debut with Prisoners, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In a full-circle moment, Villeneuve brought Dune: Part Two back to his Montreal home for a gala premiere, and JoBlo was invited to speak to the legendary director on the red (or rather spice-coloured) carpet, where we had a few minutes to chat with him about what’s coming up next for him. As you can see in the interview embedded above, Villeneuve is currently developing two scripts, one of which is Dune Messiah, and he...

Superbly acted and beautiful to look at, Dune: Part Two is 2024’s first truly great multiplex film from director Denis Villeneuve. Here’s our review:

There’s the old saying that by trying to please everybody, you end up pleasing no one. To his credit, director Denis Villeneuve has somehow managed to forge a path through mainstream filmmaking without sacrificing the understated, arthouse sensibility that has marked out his work since the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Dune: Part Two, like its 2021 opening chapter, may be a space fantasy shot on an IMAX scale, but it’s also every bit as personal, human and intimate as Villeneuve’s earlier, more raw films like Polytechnique (2009) or Incendies (2010). It also might be the most darkly enthralling $190m-plus sci-fi film ever made.

Ahead of Dune: Part Two’s release, there have been some suggestions that it’s possible to watch this film without having seen the first.

In “Dune,” Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides is heard opining, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.”

The line of dialogue is one of the most famous quotes from Frank Herbert’s classic novel and, now, one of the major themes of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s big-screen adaptation.h

But when it comes to translating a 700-page sci-fi epic into a blockbuster movie – especially when previous attempts to successfully translate the dense material for the screen have been shaky at best — there was a healthy amount of fear from everyone involved.

Villeneuve had been dreaming of bringing Herbert’s book to life since he first read it as a teenager. In a joint interview with Chalamet, the filmmaker admitted that his biggest fear once he finally got the green light from Warner Bros. and Legendary to make the movie was disappointing himself.

“I was afraid of not being able to be good enough,...

Director Denis Villeneuve has succeeded in wrestling Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic “Dune” to the big screen, and that’s an impressive feat all by itself. So when his film premiered on Friday at the Venice Film Festival, it’s no surprise that it showed what a movie version of “Dune” can be, but also why it’s been so difficult to get one onto the screen.

Villeneuve’s “Dune” is both dazzling and frustrating, often spectacular and often slow. It’s huge and loud and impressive but it can also be humorless and bleak – though on the whole, it tries valiantly to address the problems of taking on Herbert’s complex epic, which requires a director to spend lots of time setting things up and explaining the world before they can even get the damn thing off the ground.

The adventurous Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky could never quite pull...

Another Decade with Takashi Miike is a series of essays on the 2010s films of the Japanese maverick, following Notebook's earlier survey of Miike's first decade of the 21st century.If movie history is defined as much by absences as by the films that actually get made, then one of the critical lacunae of 2010s cinema is the relative lack of movies about mass shootings. Random killings in highly populated public spaces mark one of the most distressing issues in contemporary American life, as these atrocities became more and more common over the last decade. This may not be as much of a concern in other countries, which have greater safeguards to keep people from access to assault weapons, but it should be alarming to anyone. How horrible it must be to die as part of some sick person’s fantasy—horrible, in part, because of its uncanny resemblance to...

Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins became one of the most prolific director/cinematographer pairings of the 2010s, thanks to “Prisoners,” “Sicario,” and “Blade Runner 2049,” all three of which earned Deakins Oscar nominations for Best Cinematography. (He finally won for “Blade Runner 2049.”) While the two didn’t team up for Villeneuve’s upcoming “Dune,” as the cinematography honors went to “Lion” and “Rogue One” Dp Greig Fraser, they remain in touch and inspired by one another. That’s why Deakins brought Villeneuve aboard the latest episode of his “Team Deakins” podcast, where the two sat down for a sprawling discussion, including their inaugural collaboration on 2013’s “Prisoners.”

Villeneuve explained that Hollywood offerings started coming his way after his explosive, black-and-white 2009 film “Polytechnique,” but that the Canadian director was wary of working for American studios. “I didn’t have the desire to work in Hollywood because I was afraid of the Hollywood system,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe're pleased to announce that Mubi is continuing our collaboration with Filmadrid International Film Festival to bring a section dedicated to the art of the video essay to this year's edition of the festival.Recommended VIEWINGIn celebration of the centennial of André Bazin, the original critical proponent for long takes and deep focus, Dave Kehr aptly shares this breathtaking 1-hour-long jaunt through Tokyo:

In honor of Andre Bazin's 100th birthday, here's a link to my favorite YouTube long take stylist, Guy Who Walks Around Tokyo, aka Rambalac.https://t.co/w1AXCgy7Ym— Dave Kehr (@dave_kehr) April 18, 2018 The trailer (now with English subtitles!) for Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest—and mighty promising—family drama, set to premiere at Cannes next month:Conversely, here's the U.S. trailer for the latest movie by another similarly hyper-productive auteur,...

Few filmmakers of the 21st century have risen to prominence and prestige with the forcefulness of “Blade Runner 2049” director Denis Villeneuve, whose seemingly unstoppable career has been bolstered by a steady balance of critical respect and commercial success. In fact, Christopher Nolan is the only other person who comes to mind, and the similarities between the two of them are hard to ignore.

For one thing, these men are both men, and that tends to be a more crucial detail than it should. For another, they’re also genuine auteurs, each committed to a clinical brand of Cinema (with a capital “C”) that’s muscular and intellectual in equal measure. Nolan is a bit more rigidly defined by his own rubric, but Villeneuve shares his gift for sublimating big ideas into even bigger spectacles, and has likewise honed his skills by fluidly moving between massive blockbusters and idiosyncratic passion projects.

April event celebrates 150th anniversary of Canada.

A celebration of Canadian cinema will take place in Los Angeles from April 18-23 with a variety of screenings at The Cinefamily and The Aero.

The Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles will celebrate Canadian Film Day 150 (Ncfd 150), presented by Reel Canada, with a free marathon of films to mark Canada’s sesquicentennial.

The event will run on April 18 and 19 at The Cinemafamily theatre in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles screenings will kick-off on April 18 with Polytechnique from Denis Villeneuve and continue with The Saddest Music In The World, Meatballs, Strange Brew, and Villeneuve’s Incendies, followed by a Q&A with the director.

Canada Now: Best New Films 2017, presented by Telefilm Canada, will feature eight new Canadian films from the festival circuit and will screen from April 20–23 at the Aero theatre in Santa Monica, with several post-screening discussions.

Anne Émond’s biopic Nelly, about Quebec...

When we last saw Denis Villeneuve, with 2015's Sicario, Anthony Lane began his review for The New Yorker with a pair of blunt questions: "What does Denis Villeneuve do for fun? Does he know what fun is?" Lane's tone was more bemused than derisive, but he has a point: Villeneuve's cinematic world is grim, full of sickly color tints, sterile or impersonal settings, ominous silences broken by rattling gunfire, a pervasive atmosphere of doom, and protagonists who comport themselves like wide-eyed lambs on their way to the slaughter. After all, his are films where a lonely Emily Blunt can't meet a man at a bar and a bored Jake Gyllenhaal can't rent a movie without both turning into paranoid nightmares. "Sometimes it's best not to know," a weary witness tells the heroine of Villeneuve's Incendies (2010), a time-shifting French-Canadian mystery that picked up an Oscar nod for Best Foreign Film and...

Denis Villeneuve has been slowly rising the ranks in Hollywood with acclaimed and profitable dramas like “Prisoners,” “Sicario” and this year’s eight-time Oscar nominee “Arrival,” for which he’s earned his first nomination for Best Director, but he’s about to become an even bigger household. On October 6, he’s bringing Ridley Scott’s iconic science-fiction drama “Blade Runner” back to the big screen for a sequel starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling, and he recently was confirmed to be taking the reigns on Legendary Pictures’ “Dune” reboot. If we had to name a master of science-fiction right now, it would definitely be Denis Villeneuve.

Read More: ‘Arrival’: How DGA Nominee Denis Villeneuve Shaped His Unique Oscar Contender

The director recently joined Variety’s Playback Podcast, hosted by Awards Editor Kristopher Tapley, to discuss the making of “Arrival,” but the duo couldn’t help but get into Villeneuve’s exciting cinematic future.

Has Denis Villeneuve become Hollywood’s go-to science-fiction director? It certainly looks that way: Variety reports that the filmmaker, who has “Arrival” in theaters and “Blade Runner 2049” in the pipeline, is in early negotiations to helm a “Dune” reboot for Legendary Pictures. David Lynch previously brought Frank Herbert’s highly regarded novel to the screen in 1984, though it wasn’t a success: the film failed at the box office and earned Lynch the worst reviews of his career.

Read More: ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Teaser Trailer: Gorgeous First Footage From Denis Villeneuve’s Sequel Debuts

Villeneuve made his English-language debut three years ago with “Prisoners” after more than a decade working in Canada. Early efforts like “Maelström” and the wrenching “Polytechnique” eventually led to “Incendies,” which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and caught the attention of studio executives; he’s become highly prolific since then,...

Maren Ade’s German comedy won three awards including best director and best actress, while Barry Jenkins’s drama was named best film.

Father-daughter comedy Toni Erdmann was also named best foreign language film. Moonlight won best film and best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali at Sunday’s awards meeting of The Toronto Film Critics Association (Tfca).

Best actor honours went to Adam Driver for Paterson. Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea won awards for screenplay and supporting actress for Michelle Williams.

The Canadian Tire Allan King Documentary Award, which comes with a $5,000 cheque, went to Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson. Zootopia won the animation prize.

The best of three finallists selected for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award will be unveiled at the Tfca Awards Gala on January 10. They are: How Heavy This Hammer by Kazik Radwanski; Operation Avalanche by Matt Johnson; and The Stairs by Hugh Gibson.

The winner of the Stella Artois Jay Scott...

The list of potential replicants continues to grow with today’s news that Barkhad “I’m the captain now” Abdi has joined Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner” sequel. An Academy Award nominee for his “Captain Phillips” performance, Abdi joins returning star Harrison Ford alongside Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Mackenzie Davis and former WWE Champion Dave Bautista in the secretive production.

Read More: Dave Bautista Gets Ready To Rumble In ‘Blade Runner 2’

Few concrete details have emerged regarding the long-awaited sequel, which follows up on Ridley Scott’s 1982 original. That sci-fi landmark stars Ford as a semi-retired detective in 2019 Los Angeles, where four dangerous synthetic humans (or replicants) are on the loose; no plot details are presently available for the as-yet untitled sequel. 13-time Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins (who lensed Villeneuve’s “Sicario” and “Prisoners” in addition to many, many others) will serve as cinematographer.

Read More:...

Directors’ trademarks is a series of articles that examines the “signatures” that filmmakers leave behind in their work. This month we’re examining the trademark style and calling signs of Denis Villeneuve as director.

Denis Villeneuve is a French-Canadian filmmaker who realized his love for cinema while in college. He switched his studies from science to film and first made a name for himself directing independent movies. August 23rd on Earth (1998) was his first feature film, and it was well received at the Cannes film festival, where it earned a nomination for the best film award. His next film, Maelstrom (2000) continued the trend, winning more awards on the festival circuit. It took him 9 more years before he released another feature film, Polytechnique, which was well-received for its depiction of a current event in Canada. His breakthrough was 2010’s Incendies, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

In the five months found within James White, our title character is at the most difficult chapter of his life thus far. Grieving the loss of his father and attempting to assist his ailing mother, the drama authentically depicts the brutality of the process. After producing the gripping Sundance dramas Martha Marcy May Marlene and Simon Killer, Josh Mond diverts in some ways with his directorial debut. Providing yet another intimate character study of a fractured individual, James White also has a perhaps unexpected enveloping warmth.

I had the chance to speak with Mond upon the release of his debut, which arrives in limited theaters on November 13th. We discussed the personal connection everyone had on set, the intense camerawork, crafting one of the year’s most emotional scenes, finding the ending, being inspired by James Gray, Joachim Trier, Denis Villeneuve, and Wong Kar-wai, and more. Check out the full...

Sowing the Seed of Love: Émond Prescribes Depression Medicine for Two

In Zizekian logic, there are the unknown knowns, that is to say, there are things that we fail to admit to knowing. In Anne Émond’s subtly devised, multi-decade spanning family drama, there is a general and generational sentiment that the unknown is best kept secret in order to protect the next of kin. While her boldly truculent debut Nuit #1 delved into urban solitudes and wore all feelings on its sleeveless sleeves, set in a caring and loving family nucleus in a rural backdrop, the French Canadian helmer’s sophomore feature (known internationally as Our Loved Ones) is more curious about the unexplained and what is not being said. While some of the coming-of-ager sequences tucked in the denouement are a tad too overreaching, it’s with an assured, sensitive, sympathetic hand that Les êtres chers deftly explores the...

Read More: Interview with Anne Emond and Catherine de Lean - Writer/Director and Star of Nuit #1 The crisp fall air is tangible in this melancholy clip from "Our Loved Ones," which will premiere at Tiff later today. The clip features two characters sitting on a beach "just looking forward to spring," and its simplicity belies what sounds to be a complex and emotional family drama. "Our Loved Ones" marks the second film by Canadian director Anne Émond, whose debut film "Nuit #1" won several awards and garnered a lot of positive critical attention in 2011. The film's two leads, Maxim Gaudette and Karelle Tremblay, are both stars in the French Canadian film market. Maxim Gaudette has been recognized for his award-winning work with director Denis Villeneuve. The official synopsis of the film reads: "Protected from the truth about his father's death, the sensitive David (Maxim Gaudette from 'Incendies,' 'Polytechnique') has.

Over the last decade, Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has made a mix of hard-hitting and compelling films, from his sombre take on a Montreal school shooting in Polytechnique to his Oscar nominated 2010 drama Incendies. Denis released two films in 2013 that both starred Jake Gyllenhaal: the experimental and brash Enemy, which provided a surreal and haunting look at a spousal relationship; and Prisoners, a kidnapping drama with Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, and Melissa Leo joining the fray.

Villeneuve’s latest film may well be his best yet (he certainly thinks it is). Sicario is a richly drawn story about the moral ambivalence at the heart of the war on drugs. Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a seasoned FBI agent, who takes on the cartels directly with the assistance of a team led by Matt (Josh Brolin). Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a mercurial figure with a sordid past, also joins Kate...

Winner of nine Genie awards, Canada's equivalent of the Oscars, Polytechnique launched director Denis Villeneuve on an impressive mid-career run of features: the Foreign Film Oscar nominee Incendies; his Hollywood debut Prisoners; and this year's Cannes competitor Sicario, which will hit U.S. theaters in September. Polytechnique bears the hallmarks of Villeneuve's body of work: investigating life-and-death tragedies by counterpoising his characters' anguish with a coolly analytical staging of their circumstances. This approach allows him to tactfully approach an emotionally charged, real life incident: the mass murder of fourteen female students at a polytechnic school in Montreal. A handful of critical moments are filmed from multiple points of view, bringing out different dimensions to the incident, as seen in this video that synchronizes these scenes.>> - Kevin B. Lee...

Winner of nine Genie awards, Canada's equivalent of the Oscars, Polytechnique launched director Denis Villeneuve on an impressive mid-career run of features: the Foreign Film Oscar nominee Incendies; his Hollywood debut Prisoners; and this year's Cannes competitor Sicario, which will hit U.S. theaters in September. Polytechnique bears the hallmarks of Villeneuve's body of work: investigating life-and-death tragedies by counterpoising his characters' anguish with a coolly analytical staging of their circumstances. This approach allows him to tactfully approach an emotionally charged, real life incident: the mass murder of fourteen female students at a polytechnic school in Montreal. A handful of critical moments are filmed from multiple points of view, bringing out different dimensions to the incident, as seen in this video that synchronizes these scenes.>> - Kevin B. Lee...

In the beginning stages of his career (with the exception of Maelstrom showing in Berlin), Denis Villeneuve was an habitual of the Cannes Film Festival. His filmography has been embraced up and down the Croisette with short Cosmos (1996) and Polytechnique (2009) showing in the Directors’ Fortnight section, Un 32 août sur terre (1998) showing in the Un Certain Regard and his savoury short Next Floor (2008) landing at the Critics’ Week, but the Quebecois helmer was left scratching his head when Incendies (2010), Enemy (2013) and possibly Prisoners (2013) failed to receive the same approbation. Going in with zero expectations, especially with a cross-border thriller, his seventh film finally won him an In Comp berth. Considering the amount of Palme d’Or contenders receiving pans from the critic community, Sicario might actually not be so out of place as first conceived.

Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, this is receiving great reviews from the trades.

"The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario," declares the Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy. Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal and Victor Garber, the latest from Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique, Incendies, Prisoners and Enemy) is premiering in Competition in Cannes—and we're gathering reviews. "The craft is impeccable," grants Jessica Kiang at the Playlist, "with Roger Deakins's cinematography and the spectacular Jóhann Jóhannsson score." » - David Hudson...

"The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario," declares the Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy. Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal and Victor Garber, the latest from Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique, Incendies, Prisoners and Enemy) is premiering in Competition in Cannes—and we're gathering reviews. "The craft is impeccable," grants Jessica Kiang at the Playlist, "with Roger Deakins's cinematography and the spectacular Jóhann Jóhannsson score." » - David Hudson...

Part of our continuing partnership with the online film journal, cléo. Every month, cléo will be presenting a great film to watch on our video on demand platform. In conjunction, we'll be hosting an exclusive article by one of their contributors. This month Kiva Reardon writes on Denis Villeneuve's Polytechnique, which is available to watch starting today in the Us.Like beauty, time is in the eye of the beholder. It slows, speeds up, even stops altogether depending on who is experiencing the moment. The task of the filmmaker—or any storyteller—is evoking an understanding of these personal unfoldings of time; to make an interiorized experience of another resonate with a human who feels, sees and understands the world as oriented around themselves. “Forgive the mistakes. I had 15 minutes to write this.”These are the first words spoken in Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique. They are uttered in voiceover...

Hilary Swank Oscar dress Hilary Swank on Oscars' Red Carpet Pictured above is Hilary Swank, wearing an Oscar dress consisting of (what looks like) tons of frills and feathers, on the 2011 Academy Awards Red Carpet this past Sunday, Feb. 27. Swank wasn't nominated for anything, but she acted as a presenter of sorts at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. How so? Well, she introduced last year's Best Director winner, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), who then presented this year's Best Director Oscar to Tom Hooper for The King's Speech. Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank has taken home two Best Actress Oscar statuettes. Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry (1999). Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004). These were her only two nominations as well. Both times she beat Annette Bening, who was in the running this year once again for her role as a lesbian wife and mother in Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right,...

While some filmmakers only find out the night before, Cannes Film Festival’s Thierry Frémaux informed Denis Villeneuve that he’d be part of the Main Comp mix almost three weeks back. Having been on the Croisette before with his debut film Un 32 août sur Terrre (Un Certain Regard), and the Directors’ Fortnight was home for his epic short Next Floor and sobering Polytechnique, the Quebecois helmer saw his critically lauded Incendies and Enemy receive a pass from the fest, but it was this work that ultimately convinced backers with deep pockets to have the auteur filmmaker move onto large-scale productions (Prisoners, Story of Us, the Blade Runner sequel), and in turn Sicario is now among the hopefuls for the Palme d’Or.

The film’s Canadian distributor Entertainment One hosted a press conference the morning of the Cannes announcement and we learned that the filmmaker (who is one degree...

In 1989, a young man killed fourteen women at Montreal’s Polytechnique school of engineering with a Mini-14 semi-automatic carbine. In 2009’s Polytechnique, the tragedy is fictionalized in deep focus black and white that clarifies every bullet hole. There is the placid face of the young man pausing to reload his carbine. And you, the onlooker, plead at the screen the way you would for the victim of some slasher villain, “For god’s sake, somebody do something. Get him while he reloads!” We know this narrative, the angry predator, the innocent victims. It typically serves a romantic purpose, allowing the half formed young individual to reach definition through heroism and self-sacrifice. But here the square jawed young man is directionless in the face of chaos. He wanders through the hallways with no plan. He saves no one. Even the female survivor, in a subversion of “final girl” hood, discovers only...

Yesterday was a good day for the internet. The headlines were full of loose llama news, debates over the color of a dress and then just when you thought it couldn't get any more interesting, it was announced that a director had been hired for the Blade Runner sequel.

Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve, the mastermind behind Polytechnique, Incendies (review), Prisoners and most recently th [Continued ...]...

Alcon Entertainment is in talks with the French-Canadian to direct sci-fi sequel Blade Runner and confirmed Harrison Ford will reprise his iconic role as Rick Deckard.

Alcon and Villeneuve collaborated on the critically acclaimed 2013 thriller Prisoners.

Filming on Blade Runner is set for summer 2016. The action will take place several decades after the end of the 1982 original.

Ridley Scott, who directed the original, is on board as executive producer. Hampton Fancher, co-writer of the original, co-wrote the new screenplay with Michael Green based an idea by Fancher and Scott.

Alcon Entertainment acquired film, television and ancillary franchise rights to Blade Runner in 2011 from producer Bud Yorkin to produce prequels and sequels to the sci-fi.

Yorkin will serve as a producer alongside Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson. Thunderbird Films co-CEOs Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble will serve as executive producers.

“We are honoured that Harrison is joining us on this journey with Denis Villeneuve, who is...

Director Denis Villeneuve, already acclaimed on the arthouse circuit for films like "Polytechnique" and "Incendies," firmly made a play for the big leagues last year dropping two unforgettable films on the festival circuit. There was the star studded drama "Prisoners" followed by the mind-bending "Enemy" (now playing in limited release)—both starring Jake Gyllenhaal—that confirmed that the filmmaker refused to be bound by genre and would bring a unique vision to whatever material he's working on. And for his next effort, not only does he have good stuff to work with, but one of the biggest actresses in town coming on board. Deadline reports that Amy Adams is in early talks to join the sci-fi "The Story Of Your Life." Based on the short story by Ted Chiang, and with a script by Eric Heisserer ("The Thing," "Final Destination 5"), the story follows a linguist hired by the military...

Today’s film is the 2008 short Next Floor. The film stars Jean Marchand, Neil Kroetsch, and Mathieu Handfield, is written by Jacques Davidts, and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve has made a name for himself on the international film stage with movies such as Polytechnique and Incendies, and made his first foray into English-language feature films in 2013 with Prisoners. His newest feature, titled Enemy, opens in limited release in American theatres this weekend.

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The post Saturday Shorts: ‘Next Floor’, directed by Denis Villeneuve appeared first on Sound On Sight.

The film industry lives to surprise us, but if I were to compile a list right now of Directors Least Likely To Direct A Romantic Comedy In The Near Or Distant Future, I'd feel comfortable placing Québécois atmosphere merchant Denis Villeneuve in the top five. For better or worse, Villeneuve's cinema thrives on a kind of precision-cut, cultivatedly fetid dourness. At its worst, it produces damp, philosophically aspirational melodrama like the abhorrent, Oscar-nominated "Incendies"; last year's gorgeous, luxuriantly trashy thriller "Prisoners" suggested he's better suited to material that knows its own daftness, even if Villeneuve himself doesn't. Or perhaps not. Shot back-to-back with "Prisoners," the equally sombre but very differently scaled "Enemy" practically begs for charges of pretension from its opening onscreen epigraph: "Chaos is order yet undeciphered." It's a red flag signalling that we may be back in lugubrious "Incendies" territory -- certainly, José Saramago's thoughtful source novel...

Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve will direct the adaptation of Ted Chiang’s short tale Story of Your Life.

The screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer (The Thing, A Nightmare on Elm Street), and is based on Chiang’s award-winning short story. The film begins when an alien crafts land around the world and an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat. As she learns to communicate with the aliens, she begins experiencing vivid flashbacks that become the key to unlocking the greater mystery about the true purpose of their visit.

Villeneuve is best known for the Canadian films Polytechnique and Incendies, as well as last year’s hit thriller Prisoners.

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The post ‘Prisoners’ Director Denis Villeneuve Goes Sci-Fi With ‘Story Of Your Life’ appeared first on Latino-Review.com.

“Revenge” fans can assume that Margaux will survive Season 3. French Canadian actress Karine Vanasse, who plays magazine editor Margaux on the ABC drama, will be promoted to a series regular should the network renew the series for a fourth season, a show representative told TheWrap. Also read: ‘Revenge’ Winter Finale: Who Shot Emily Grayson? Before “Revenge,” Vanasse starred on ABC’s “Pan Am” series. She is best known in her home country for the films “Polytechnique,” “Séraphin: un homme et son péché” and Emporte-moi. A former flame of Daniel’s (Josh Bowman), Margaux is currently infatuated with Jack (Nick Wechsler...

As we barrel toward 2014 and assess the year in cinema that was, we hope folks don't forget that it was quite a 2013 for low-key helmer Denis Villeneuve. He rolled into the festival season with two stunners under his arm: the wrenching "Prisoners" and the Jake Gyllenhaal double-starrer "Enemy" (recently named by Tiff as one of the Top 10 Canadian Films Of 2013). It's quite a feat for the filmmaker—who until now was mostly known on the arthouse circuit, notably for "Incendies" and "Polytechnique"—and was quite the arrival for the filmmaker who cemented that he's one of the best in the game right now. And now Villeneuve is considering a project that's pretty damn exciting. The director is circling up to helm the Mexico/U.S. border crime tale "Sicario." Penned by Taylor Sheridan, the "No Country For Old Men"-esque tale will follow a female cop and two male delta-force...

News.

Michel Brault, one of the great Canadian filmmakers, passed away at the age of 85. Our community has started a couple of threads to commemorate the acclaimed artist in our forum. The Mill Valley Film Festival kicks off tomorrow and runs until the 13th. We've written on a few of the highlights: 12 Years a Slave; Gloria; Like Father, Like Son; The Missing Picture; and The Wind Rises. Also make sure to check out the digital restoration of My Neighbor Totoro (one of this author's all-time favorites). Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street currently clocks in at three hours, much to the chagrin of Warner Bros. Its slated November release date is reportedly unlikely to hold as the distributors are asking the filmmaker to make some cuts. Rumors say Scorsese may not bend so easily, making a 2013 release uncertain at this point. Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof was detained upon...

With the release of his first Hollywood film a few weeks ago (Prisoners (trailer)) and a first look at his upcoming doppelganger drama Enemy (clip), Denis Villeneuve is currently in very high demand and rightfully so.

In all the chatter of Villeneuve features, I'd almost forgotten that a few years ago, just before the release of Polytechnique, Villeneuve directed the award winning short film Next Floor. It's likely the closest the director has ever come to an out and out genre movie, a short about food, gluttony and perha [Continued ...]...

‘Prisoners’ movie weekend box office: Best ‘serious’ (non-musical) Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal opening in years (photo: Hugh Jackman in ‘Prisoners’) The nearly two-and-a-half-hour thriller Prisoners, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, will easily top the North American box office this weekend, September 20-22, 2013. Currently playing at 3,260 locations, Prisoners took in $7.01 million on Friday, according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. Budgeted at a reported $46 million — not including marketing and distribution expenses — the Warner Bros. release is expected to collect around $21 million by Sunday evening, as per Deadline.com. How does that compare to previous Hugh Jackman weekend debuts? Setting aside Tom Hooper’s "event musical" Les Misérables and action movies such as The Wolverine, the R-rated Prisoners may turn out to be Jackman’s strongest opening in an "adult (non-musical) film." For comparison’s sake, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, co-starring Nicole Kidman,...

Anyone looking for the next great American filmmaker might have to spread their search to the Northern part of North America where a number of French-Canadian filmmakers have started to get attention and being brought "South of the Border" to make their English language debuts. One of those filmmakers is Denis Villeneuve, whose Canadian films Maelstrom and Polytechnique were able to find an arthouse crowd in the States before his third movie Incendies was nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar. Interest in the latter film led to Villeneuve taking on his first studio film with Prisoners , a moody crime-thriller based around the disappearance of two young girls with an impressive ensemble cast filled with Oscar-nominated actors including Hugh Jackman, Jake...

Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is well known to fans of international cinema, garnering acclaim for films such as Polytechnique and Incendies, with the latter earning Villeneuve an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Many people were thus intrigued when it was announced that the filmmaker would be taking on directing duties on a complete English language American feature. Villeneuve steps away from writing this time, working instead from a script by Contraband writer Aaron Guzikowski, and a cast that includes Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, and Melissa Leo. A new trailer for the feature, titled Prisoners, has now been released, and can be seen below.

(Source: Indiewire)

The post ‘Prisoners’, the latest feature from Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, releases a new trailer appeared first on Sound On Sight.

What value does fiction have in the interpretation of a historical event? This question can become central to the reception and understanding of historical films and has taken on important resonance in past years in regards to films like Ben Affleck’s Argo or Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. These films are not documentaries; however they attempt to portray accurately events as they might have transpired. A similar film that for Canadian’s is perhaps a little closer to home is Denis Villeneuve’s 2009 film Polytechnique. For those unfamiliar with the events of the film, it portrays a 1989 Massacre at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, where Marc Lépine shot 28 people, killing 14 – all of whom were women. He purposefully targeted the women, blaming them for not being accepted into the school. Though on a smaller scale, like the two big Hollywood productions this film portrays an important historical event that...

Canadian director Denis Villeneuve first emerged on the Canadian film front with an odd little film titled Maelstrom. The story was interesting but what really stood out was Villeneuve's strong storytelling and visual style which he cemented with the release, a few years later, of Polytechnique. A dramatization of the 1989 Montreal Massacre, Polytechnique was a spectacular achievement in storytelling and direction, a movie which tackled a difficult subject with care. Two years ago Villeneuve adapted Wajdi Mouawad's award winning play and Incendies (review) ushered in the arrival of Villeneuve on the international scene. [Continued ...]...

Canadian Screen Awards 2013 nominations: War Witch rules The Genie Awards are dead, long live the Canadian Screen Awards! Well, in truth, the Genie Awards aren’t exactly dead; they’ve just been transmogrified, along with Canadian television’s Gemini Awards, into the aforementioned Canadian Screen Awards, organized by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. But Genie or Canadian Screen, once again a Québécois production dominates the nominations roster. (Photo: Rachel Mwanza in Kim Nguyen’s War Witch.) Kim Nguyen’s Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nominee Rebelle / War Witch, the story of a (very) young African rebel fighter, received a total of 12 Canadian Screen Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Berlin Film Festival’s Best Actress Rachel Mwanza), Best Supporting Actor (Serge Kanyinda), and Best Original Screenplay (Nguyen). War Witch follows in the heels of recent Quebec-made Genie Award powerhouses and eventual Best Picture winners such...

Tom à la Ferme

Director: Xavier Dolan

Writer(s): Dolan and Michel Marc Bouchard

Producer(s): Mk2′s Charles Gillibert and Nathanaël Karmitz

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Caleb Landry Jones, Xavier Dolan, Evelyne Brochu

Legend has it that Xavier Dolan met with the playwright directly after one of the play’s engagements (see promotional pic above) and asked to bring the film to the big screen. Fast forward a couple of seasons later and Dolan makes it his fourth feature – a departure for him as it’s an adaption for one, and that this source material wasn’t penned by him. It’ll be a nice change of pace to see the director work from material that is somewhat removed from him but yet remains in the confines of the family drama (for which Dolan excelled in with his very first feature, I Killed My Mother). As for now,...

Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has always been one of French-speaking Canada's most exciting filmmaking talents, thanks to the likes of "Maelström" and "Polytechnique," both of which won him Genie awards for Best Director, but last year saw him really start to make waves internationally with his Oscar-nominated drama "Incendies." That film saw him leap up Hollywood directorial wish-lists, with the filmmaker becoming attached to the long-gestating Black List script "Prisoners," while late last year saw reports that he'd be teaming up with Jessica Chastain for an adaptation of Russell Banks' novel "The Darling." But he's just added one more film to those competing to be his next one, and from the subject matter alone, it has the potential to be even more incendiary than, well, "Incendies." Screen Daily report that Villeneuve is now attached to direct an adaptation of Joe Sacco's 2009 graphic...