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After highlighting the 50 best films you may have missed this year and our overall top 50 films of 2024, today we put our spotlight on those that still need a home: movies we loved on the festival circuit––from Berlinale, Sundance, Cannes, TIFF, NYFF, Rotterdam, and beyond—still seeking U.S. distribution.

We hope that highlighting these titles spurs some distributor interest and a forthcoming release; we’ll be sharing any updates in this regard in on social media, so make sure to follow us. As we move into 2025, one can also track our upcoming festival coverage here.

Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)

Following up his career-best work with the mesmerizing Pacifiction, Albert Serra is back just a couple years later, this time with a work of non-fiction. Afternoons of Solitude is a mesmerizing portrait of bullfighting star Andrés Roca Rey, set over just a handful of extended sequences in which we...

Despite a welcome East Side renaissance in repertory screenings, genre fests, and classical retrospectives, Los Angeles as a sprawling industry town needs a banner festival where undiscovered gems, glitzy red carpet premieres, and especially international fare can earn equal ovation. Only AFI Fest, even if scaled down from the previous decade, fits the bill.

The festival’s full-time programming team travels year-long to festivals such as the Berlinale, Cannes, and TIFF to scout the finest work, and the weighty influence of the American Film Institute ensures the glamour and the gravitas. This year, the Angelina Jolie-starrer “Maria,” the world premiere of the latest Clint Eastwood movie, “Juror #2,” and the opening night documentary tribute “Music by John Williams” are all on-brand selections. Robert Zemeckis will be in conversation with Tom Hanks on Thursday before the sold-out Friday premiere of their latest collaboration, “Here.”

Premiering in L.A. are several titles...

Updated to clarify that Little, Big, and Far is a hybrid fiction-nonfiction film. Exclusive: Grasshopper Film has acquired North American distribution rights to Little, Big, and Far ahead of its world premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The hybrid fiction-nonfiction film from award-winning director Jem Cohen will bow on Saturday evening as the Centerpiece selection of NYFF’s Currents section.

“Jem Cohen brings the same meditative elegance and intellectual curiosity he did to Museum Hours (2012) with his stargazing new feature, again using the cinematic form to patiently interrogate ways of seeing and being,” the festival writes in its program. “The principal subject of Cohen’s film is an Austrian astronomer named Karl who has been re-evaluating his work and life after turning 70, and who travels to a mountaintop on a Greek island in search of the darkest sky against which to view the cosmos. Yet the real matter of the singular Little,...

Afternoons of Solitude.Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon (1932), his book of reportage on bullfighting, was received skeptically by some critics upon its publication. When reviewing it in The New York Times, R. L. Duffs contended that the work’s long-winded spiritualism was at odds with the writer’s habitually lapidary prose. Catalan director Albert Serra is also a self-described admirer of the sport; it repels some even while it mesmerizes others with its peculiar mixture of artful pageantry and shocking gore. His new nonfiction film Afternoons of Solitude (2024) eschews the Hemingway-esque temptation to dress up in philosophical garb a spectacle that, at its core, stems as much from crude, irrational impulses as it does from the desire to touch the sublime through a proximity to violence. In Afternoons, whose title professes its affinity for Hemingway’s rendering of tauromaquia, Serra follows the Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, observing...

When J. Hoberman placed game 6 of the 1986 World Series on his Village Voice year-end list, we had one of the first, most convincing attempts to enshrine live sports as cinema. And while a game can carry the compressed rise and fall, and dramatis personae, of a great narrative, you can further hone in on visual grammar: a televised match is also a spectacle of live editing––close-ups and masters seamlessly stitched together, rules of offscreen space and eyeline-matching also respected.

To make a UK-centric reference: Albert Serra’s new film Afternoons of Solitude is more akin to two hours of Sky Sports than you’d expect from the guy who once made Story of My Death. Following the rules, if not the spirit, of ever-festival-fashionable observational and direct cinema, we spend most of its runtime in long takes observing Spanish bullfighting rings, our eyes focused on Andrés Roca Rey, a...

The poetic title, Afternoons of Solitude (Tardes de Soledad), might evoke tranquility and relaxation, maybe a few lazy hours in a hammock with a book. But don’t be deceived. Albert Serra’s transfixing portrait of 27-year-old Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, and of the hotly contentious Spanish tradition in which he has emerged as a star, never downplays the visceral brutality of what’s essentially blood sport as performance art. Anyone with a low threshold for cruelty to animals will find this a harrowing watch, but for those with the stomach for it, the doc is a unique study of discipline, bravado, laser focus and showmanship.

Serra, known for stripped-down slow-cinema narratives that can be both seductive and distancing, had something of an international breakthrough with 2022’s Pacifiction. This nonfiction detour evinces many qualities familiar from his dramatic features, among them the atmospheric, quasi-dream state; the long takes, usually...

Sometimes, in a closely contested festival competition, it pays to be the one thing that isn’t like the others. A starkly powerful, observational study of contemporary bullfighting, Spanish auteur Albert Serra’s “Afternoons of Solitude” was the only documentary in the main competition at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival — and this evening won the Golden Shell for best film of the festival, beating some big-name narrative competition.

The award was presented by last year’s Golden Shell winner, Spanish filmmaker Jaione Camborda, heading a jury that also included directors Ulrich Seidl, Christos Nikou and Fran Kranz, producer Carole Scotta and Argentine journalist Leila Guerriero.

Centred on star Peruvian matador Andrés Rey Roca, “Afternoons of Solitude” is candid in its depiction of the violence of the sport, and has already proven controversial on home turf, with Spain’s animal-rights party Pacma calling for the film to be withdrawn from the festival.

San Sebastian — With its awards ceremony Saturday night, the San Sebastian Festival’s 72nd edition is heading into its final straits. Following, 10 takeaways from what looks like its biggest edition ever in star wattage, the caliber of Spanish filmmaking and the number of deals reported by Variety, set in the context of vertiginous change in international independent film and TV landscape.

San Sebastian 2024: The Stars Align

Johnny Depp visited kids in a San Sebastian hospital dressed as Jack Sparrow; Javier Bardem teared up remembering his mother, the exemplary Pilar Bardem; Pedro Almodóvar remembered back 44 years to his first San Sebastian, performing at disco Ku and ending up on the beach at 8 in the morning. Cate Blanchett, accepting her Donostia Award, praised the “uncertainty which drives me.”

Never before have so many stars descended on San Sebastian. Why? “I think two factors are at play,” San Sebastian Film Festival director José Luis Rebordinos told Variety.

As exciting as it can be to see some of the most-anticipated films of the year at their festival debuts, it’s perhaps even a more enticing proposition to seek out the films that one may not have a chance to for quite some time. With the 62nd New York Film Festival kicking off this Friday, September 27 at Film at Lincoln Center, we’ve highlighted the must-see selections still seeking U.S. distribution at the time of publishing. For more coverage, follow here and subscribe to our daily newsletter.

Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)

Following up his career-best work with the mesmerizing Pacifiction, Albert Serra is back just a couple years later, this time with a work of non-fiction. Afternoons of Solitude is a mesmerizing portrait of bullfighting star Andrés Roca Rey, set over just a handful of extended sequences in which we bear witness to the primal connection made between man and animal.

Audiovisual from Spain, operated by Spanish governmental export and investment org Icex, hosted a short film screening, roundtable discussion and cocktail party at the San Sebastian Festival on Tuesday evening to promote its new screen industry promotion campaign: Spain, Where Talent Ignites.

At the city’s historic Tabakalera culture center, Icex CEO Elisa Carbonell explained, “This campaign aims to help build an image associated with the country related to transversality, diversity and the richness of its creativity. There is talent in all countries, but not everyone values it equally. Our commitment is to put talent at the top.”

The centerpiece of the evening’s festivities and the Where Talent Ignites campaign, which will host events at Mipcom, AFM and the Busan festival in the coming weeks, is a short musical fashion film titled “La causa del accidente que provocó el incendio,” which premiered in front of a packed house.

Directed...

Films Boutique has picked up international rights to Albert Serra’s documentary “Afternoons of Solitude” (Tardes de Soledad) ahead of its world premiere in the competition section of the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film marks the third collaboration between Serra and Berlin-based Films Boutique after “Liberté,” winner of the Special Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2019, and “Pacifiction,” which premiered in Cannes competition in 2022 and went on to earn nine nominations and two wins at France’s Cesar.

Further awards for “Pacifiction” included best director and cinematography at France’s Lumiere Awards, as well as 11 nominations at the Gaudi awards with wins for cinematography, production design and non-Catalan language film. The film also received a best film nod from the Guardian and was also elected best film of the year by the Cahiers du Cinéma.

“Afternoons of Solitude” is a portrait of bullfighting star Andrés Roca Rey,...

San Sebastian — Is this the San Sebastián Catalan Film Festival? Always boasting a sterling presence at San Sebastián, Catalonia has a massive 27 titles this year, counting five projects in doc forum Lau Haizetara and including four of the five Spanish movies in main Competition and 10 in Made in Spain. Following a break-down of major section titles:

Main Competition

“Afternoons of Solitude,” (Andergraun Films, Ideale Audience, Lacima Producciones)

Albert Serra’s not at all obvious follow-up to Cannes competition player “Pacifiction,” a portrait of star bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey at work. The results remain to be seen. Serra has shot the disc feature “with respect and innocence, without prejudice nor provocation,” he tells Spain’s ABC Cultural.

“Glimmers,” (Inicia Films, Mod Producciones, Misent Producciones)

The latest from Pilar Palomero. A top-notch Spanish cast led by Patricia López Arnaíz and Antonio de la Torre drive the tale of a woman asked by...

When The Childhood of a Leader premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, you had to wonder where Brady Corbet could possibly go next. There was just something wonderfully distasteful about it all: a 27-year-old American speculating on Europe’s darkest days with such brazen energy. Corbet went one better with Vox Lux‘s festival debut in 2018, switching to the States and trading the rise of a dictator with a young woman’s rise from school-shooting survivor to international pop star. Time and history do another spectacular, melancholy dance in The Brutalist, a film with faint echoes of Andrei Rublev‘s monumental ambitions and rich shades of Paul Thomas Anderson’s American myth-making. It might be the best film of the year.

The film premiered in Venice, making it three in a row for Corbet and also a trilogy of fictional biopics: each focusing on a different kind of greatness, each forged in violence and trauma.

Before highlighting 40 films confirmed to be arriving in theaters this fall that you should have on your radar, we turn our attention to the festival-bound films either without distribution nor a confirmed fall release date. Looking over Venice, Toronto, the New York Film Festival, and other selections, we’ve rounded up 20 we can’t wait to see over the next few weeks.

Find our 20 most-anticipated festival premieres below and return for our reviews, as well as news if some of these hit theaters this fall.

2073 (Asif Kapadia; Venice)

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia returns with what appears to be his most ambitious feature yet. Billed as a documentary thriller set in a dystopia 50 years into the future, 2073 borrows inspiration from Chris Marker’s La Jetée, in which a time-traveler attempted to save humanity after an apocalyptic World War III. The Oscar-winning director, primarily known for capturing intimate portraits of sports...

Two Netflix Originals and new movies from Mike Leigh, Joshua Oppenheimer, Gia Coppola and Edward Berger will vie for San Sebastian’s top Golden Shell this September.

The festival features a main competition that is stronger than usual on both bigger-name directors and ‘A’ list stars, such as Tilda Swinton in Oppenheimer’s “The End,” Jamie Lee Curtis and Pamela Anderson in Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” and the ensemble cast of Berger’s “Conclave” that includes Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini.

Bound for Toronto and Telluride before San Sebastián, Oppenheimer’s “The End” stars Swinton, George MacKay and Michael Shannon in what is described as a post-apocalyptic “Golden Age” musical.

“Conclave,” from “All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger,” is a psychological thriller written by Peter Straughan, based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.

Cuatro películas españolas en la competición.

Hoy se han dado a conocer las películas españolas que formarán parte de la programación de la 72ª edición del Festival de Cine de San Sebastián, que se celebrará del 20 al 28 de septiembre.

Cuatro películas españolas formarán parte de la competición por la Concha de Oro del Festival: “Soy Nevenka”, “El Llanto”, “Los Destellos” y “Tardes de Soledad”.

© 72Ssiff

Icíar Bollaín, conocida por su película “Maixabel”, presentará “Soy Nevenka”, que será su quinta participación en la Sección Oficial. Protagonizada por Mireia Oriol y Urko Olazabal, se basa en la historia real de Nevenka Fernández, una concejala que pagó un alto precio por atreverse a denunciar el acoso del alcalde de Ponferrada. Una historia que convirtió a su protagonista en una pionera del movimiento #metoo al llevar por primera vez a un político influyente ante los tribunales por acoso sexual y laboral.

© 72Ssiff

En su ópera prima,...

Not even 12 hours ago we learned Kristen Stewart had nabbed a new auteur in Panos Cosmatos, a wise choice by the ever-adventurous actress. Her other choice on May 2, 2024 is quite another level of intrigue: Albert Serra, the perpetual festival favorite whose Pacifiction was something of a breakout hit, yes, if not quite to a level anyone anticipated. (Anyone but the man himself.) Per Film Stiftung, Serra’s previously announced Out of This World has secured funding, coinciding with a planned 2025 premiere.

Out of This World will likely feature an uncharacteristic level of English dialogue for Serra. As the official synopsis goes: “An American delegation travels to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute linked to sanctions. Out of This World explores the eternal rivalry between Russia and the USA.”

“As is often the case, one of the year’s...

Paris-based international sales and production company Totem Films has revealed its production slate, with projects by Nastia Korkia, Vytautas Katkus, Ernst de Geer and Anna Roller.

Totem Atelier, the development and production arm of the company, has revealed that it has boarded Korkia’s “A Short Summer.”

Korkia’s short documentary “Dreams About Putin” premiered at IDFA last year. Her first documentary feature “Ges-2” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2021.

“A Short Summer” is produced by Germany’s TamTam (“Pacifiction” by Albert Serra) together with independent producer Natalia Drozd (“Compartment N°6” by Juho Kuosmanen) and Serbia’s Art&Popcorn.

The film centers on eight-year-old Katya, who is going on vacation with her grandparents. In the summer heat, the war in Chechnya takes shape, while her grandparents’ relationship falls apart. Despite her youth, Katya wants to look at the world straight in the eyes.

“A Short Summer” has received support from Creative Europe Media,...

2023 was a tumultuous year for the film industry, with lengthy writers and actors strikes bringing Hollywood productions to a grinding halt and forcing fall festivals to proceed without their typical red carpet star power. But amid all the chaos, it slowly emerged as one of the best years for cinema in recent memory. Just take a look at the 50 best movies of 2023, as determined by IndieWire’s annual critics survey.

158 critics voted in our end-of-year poll, and the resulting top 50 films of the year are the closest you’ll find to a truly global critical consensus about the year’s best films.

The concept of Barbenheimer — that “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” would release on the same day, July 21 — grew in the minds of cinephiles in the months leading up to both films actually unspooling on screens. How extraordinary is it that these films actually lived up to the hype? They are...

Berlin has unveiled the international jury for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, which runs Feb. 15-25.

The 2024 jury will include U.S. director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux), Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui (Summer Snow), Berlinale regular Christian Petzold (Afire, Undine), Spanish director Albert Serra (Pacification), Italian actress Jasmine Trinca (The Son’s Room) and the Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko.

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave, Black Panther) will serve as president of the International Jury.

The four-woman, three-man jury will screen the competition titles at this year’s Berlinale and select the winners of the 2024 festival, including the Golden Bear for best film. The winners of the 74th Berlinale will be announced live at a gala ceremony in Berlin on Saturday, Feb. 24.

Petzold is probably the most familiar face for Berlinale audiences. The German director has had 6 films in competition in Berlin, most recently Afire, which won...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

The world came back in 2023. The box office, the labor strikes, the raging wars, the Who-declared end of official global emergency, the AI explosion. People were stir-crazy, anxious to act, be it in the name of violence or peace or productivity. It’s been a sobering reminder that life fully lived is defined by bedrock tragedy as much as triumph––that to enter back into open community with the rest of the world is to feel the effervescence of life flowing naturally again while simultaneously laying oneself bare to fresh devastation. It’s been a reminder of the duality of being: that real life is much wilder than the movies and yet the day-to-day is still defined by mundanity and monotony––the amassed in-between moments.

In those in-betweens,...

Having achieved the unprecedented feat of having a film in our top 20 of last year and the same film in our top five of this year with his astounding Pacifiction, expectations are certainly high for the next feature from Albert Serra.

It’s now been announced Serra will begin production this summer on his next film Out of This World, with a 2025 premiere in store. The project will find him tackling modern international relations head-on, as the synopsis reveals: “An American delegation travels to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute linked to sanctions. Out Of This World explores the eternal rivalry between Russia and the USA.”

“As is often the case, one of the year’s most compelling films comes in the form of one of its most unrelatable stories: the lonesome, lingering descent of a seasoned French...

Post masterwork Pacifiction (read review), it appears that Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra will stick to murky politics and scope once again for what is indeed his English-language project debut. If Kristen Stewart is available, then this would indeed be the project to join. Serra will be moving into production next summer, likely earmarking a Cannes 2025 showcase.

The Les Films du Losange folks have identified Out of this World as Serra’s next project. This is about an American delegation who go to Russia amid the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute linked to sanctions.…...

For many of the 158 critics and journalists who voted in IndieWire’s 2023 critics survey to determine the best movies and performances of the year, the wait was worth it. Six years since Martin Scorsese was first attached to “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and four years after it went into active development, the film topped our poll — in fact, even more decisively than Todd Field’s “TÁR” did in last year’s survey.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” appeared on 94 of the 158 ballots, a little over 59 percent. The critics who voted last year only mentioned “TÁR” on 45 percent of their ballots, and we declared that a landslide at the time. Scorsese’s film also received 25 first-place votes naming it the best film of the year, the most first-place votes in addition to the most overall mentions. Scorsese himself also topped Best Director voting. “Killers of the Flower Moon” previously had...

The holidays are upon us, so whether you looking for film-related gifts or simply want to pick up some of the finest the year had to offer in the category for yourself, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and more home-video picks, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

Giveaways

In celebration of our holiday gift guide, we’ll be doing a number of giveaways! First up, we’re giving away My First Movie Vol. 2, a three-part ‘lil cinephile series by Cory Everett and illustrator Julie Olivi, featuring My First Spaghetti Western, My First Yakuza Movie, and My First Hollywood Musical.

Enter on Instagram (for My First Yakuza Movie), Twitter (for My First Hollywood Musical), and/or Facebook (for My First Spaghetti Western) by Sunday, November 26 at 11:59pm Et. Those that enter on all three platforms...

Producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet has become a hero to filmmakers who rock the boat – feature and documentary revolutionaries who work in ways that he says are “completely unique,” as he puts it: Albert Serra, Frederick Wiseman, Wang Bing and Alexandr Sokurov.

And it’s hard to imagine anyone else who would have agreed to produce an English version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” directed by Kenneth Branagh (after Francis Ford Coppola and several luminaries declined the project), set in World War I.

But for Bardet, the fascination of working with those who reject the usual conventions of filmmaking is what drives him – which is a key reason he was honored at this year’s Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival for his contribution to cinema by the Czech producers association.

Bardet’s new film with Serra, focused on the rituals of bullfighting in Spain, is likely to push boundaries still further,...

One of the most purely pleasurable films of the year, Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things secured France’s pick as their Oscar entry over Anatomy of a Fall, which should be no surprise to those who have seen both films. Led by Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, the culinary drama may go down easy, but there’s an impressive sense of heartbreak and longing to the film, which will next stop by the 61st New York Film Festival before opening from IFC Films. Along with a new trailer, they’ve set an awards-qualifying run in December 2023, then a limited opening on February 9, 2024 and expansion on February 14, 2024.

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Last time Benoît Magimel appeared in the Cannes competition, a vision in Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, he played a foreign diplomat who stalked an island of French Polynesia like a trashy king. If Serra’s...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Armageddon Time (James Gray)

Armageddon Time is the sort of film usually invoked as a “portrait of the nation” or “state of the union address,” something taking the temperature of a country—most likely the United States—at a particular time in history. But it’s also a work that makes self-consciousness a virtue: its wonderful writer-director, James Gray, is informed up to his eyes about the virtues and pitfalls of films like these, and here makes something so idiosyncratically his own but that audiences and critics might still mislabel with one of those aforementioned ideas. – David K. (full review)

Where to Stream: Prime Video

Godland (Hlynur Pálmason)

Featuring onscreen text explaining how the film was inspired by left-behind photos taken by...

Sapan Studios and IFC Films have acquired U.S. rights to “The Pot-au-Feu,” Trần Anh Hùng’s (“The Scent of Green Papaya”) lush gastronomy-themed romance which competed at the Cannes Film Festival and won best director. The movie is headlined by two of France’s biggest stars, Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel, who won this year’s Cesar Award for “Pacifiction.”

“The Pot-au-Feu” was produced by Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films and is represented in international markets by Gaumont.

The movie is one of the first titles co-acquired by Sapan Studios and IFC Films as part of their production and acquisition deal. Sapan Studios is a new TV and film production/distribution company run by former AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan.

Set in France in 1885, “The Pot-au-Feu” follows the life of Dodin Bouffant (Magimel) as a preeminent chef who has been living with his personal cook and lover Eugénie (Binoche) for over two decades.

Period drama inspired by the true story of a French bearded woman.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Stephanie Di Giusto’s period drama Rosalie from France’s Gaumont, following its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Set in 1870s France, it stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz as a woman who must constantly shave her face to conceal her hairiness, which extends across her whole body. Her new husband, played by Benoît Magimel, is initially repulsed but when she lets go of her embarrassment, the novelty begins to attract curious customers to their struggling cafe.

‘Rosalie’: Cannes...

There’s food porn, which shows like Chef’s Table and Top Chef, not to mention last year’s horror hit movie The Menu, have turned into widely popular entertainment. And then there’s art house food porn, a subgenre that possibly dates back to Marco Ferreri’s 1973 satire La Grande Bouffe, and whose other examples include Babette’s Feast, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Tampopo, Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate. The latter films tend to be made in a language other than English, and they’re less about chefs competing for Michelin stars, or glowing reviews from Pete Wells, than about food as a way of life.

Where else but France, then, as the setting for the latest, and certainly one of the most appetizing, art house food porn flicks to come along in a while? Tràn Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu (La Passion du Dodin-Bouffant) is...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including the exclusive streaming premiere of Albert Serra’s extraordinary Pacifiction, a trio of films by Todd Haynes, two by Michael Haneke (Caché and Amour), plus works by David Cronenberg, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, and Derek Jarman.

Additional selections include Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo Celeste, Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers, Sean Baker’s early film Starlet, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s short Mekong Hotel.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

June 1 – Is This Fate?, directed by Helga Reidemeister | What Sets Us Free? German Feminist Cinema

June 2 – Safe, directed by Todd Haynes | I Really Love You: Three by Todd Hayne

June 3 – Caché, directed by Michael Haneke | Close-Up on Michael Haneke

June 4 – Amour, directed by Michael Haneke | Close-Up on Michael Haneke

June 5 – Topology of Sirens, directed by Jonathan Davies

June 6 – Tetsuo, the Iron Man, directed by Shin’ya...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Chez Jolie Coiffure (Rosine Mbakam)

A vérité vignette of a small, expat-owned hair salon in Brussels’ African Quarter. Award-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam’s sophomore feature explores displacement, resilience, and the small economies migrants build to temper ties to their homelands, through mid-braid gossip and humble confessions.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Giving Birth to a Butterfly (Theodore Schaefer)

We meet Diana Dent (Annie Parisse) readying matching wedding gowns soon revealed as not her own. She’s mending them to sell online—a necessity considering her bull-headed and controlling husband Daryl (Paul Sparks) is hell-bent on putting their life savings towards a dream of creating his own restaurant. That means no money for Drew (Owen Campbell) or Danielle’s (Rachel Resheff) college.

Besting the likes of Albert Serra’s Pacifiction and Louis Garrel’s The Innocent to win Best Film at this year’s César Awards––not to mention picking up six other awards––Dominik Moll’s mystery thriller The Night of the 12th is now arriving at U.S. shores to kick off the summer. Based on a true crime book by Pauline Guéna, the film was picked up by Film Movement for a May 19 theatrical release, and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer.

“In nearly every police precinct, detectives are inevitably confronted with a case that goes unsolved. The more heinous the crime, the more it haunts those whose duty it is solve it,” the synopsis reads. “Such is the dilemma for Yohan Vivès—a young, recently promoted police Captain—when he begins investigating the gruesome murder of a young women named Clara in the town of Grenoble.

Films Boutique, the Berlin-based company behind “Pacifiction” and “The Burdened,” has come on board three international movies slated for the Cannes Film Festival. These include a pair of films set for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, “Terrestrial Verses” and “The Buriti Flower,” as well as “Tiger Stripes” which will bow at Critics’ Week.

“Terrestrial Verses,” directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, is the sole Iranian film premiering in the Official Selection. The movie marks the first collaboration between these two critically acclaimed directors.

Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.

While the plot remains under wrap, the film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad.

Pacifiction is one of the best, most compelling and creatively stimulating films released in the past year, and when you watch it, you just know that the brains behind it are every bit as fascinating. So it came as little surprise to have that confirmed, when we had the pleasure of sitting down with Spanish auteur Albert Serra in Paris earlier this year, to discuss and dissect his latest production.

He talks about the power of imagery, and his approach to his craft, and the process to his execution. He talks about the blurred lines in humanity & politics, and the staggering work from his leading man Benoit Magimel. He also talks about his next feature film, and what his fans can expect, and tells us why he believes there aren’t any filmmakers out there like him. “I am that extreme”, he tells us. Ain’t that the truth.

One...

Another busy week sees 18 new titles in cinemas.

A major horror franchise resurrects itself at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, as Studiocanal’s Evil Dead Rise opens in 587 cinemas – the eighth-widest opening ever for an 18-rated film.

Written and directed by Lee Cronin, Evil Dead Rise follows two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by flesh-possessing demons thrusting them into a battle for survival.

The film stars Australian actresses Lily Sullivan, who starred in Amazon Studios series Picnic At Hanging Rock and features including Galore; and Alyssa Sutherland, from Amazon’s Vikings series.

Rise is the fifth film in the Evil Dead franchise,...

Benoît Magimel won best actor César for his role in Pacifiction earlier this year, the second time in a row he had picked up the prize. He said at the time: 'I don’t think I ever had so much freedom as an actor as on this film'. Serra says of the star: 'He was very brave in his attitude' Photo: New Wave Actors either love or hate working with Catalan director Albert Serra, who creates his own special worlds on the set as he shoots. He knows that he puts his cast under a lot of pressure but that’s part of the deal when they sign on.

Whatever the recipe, clearly it can work in an actor’s favour. Benoît Magimel, star of the director’s latest Pacifiction, shot in Tahiti, won best actor César for the second year in a row for his performance as France’s...

It’s been an interesting year for cinema thus far, and that won’t be slowing down in April.

There’s Leonor Will Never Die (7 April) – a meta love letter to Filipino cinema, led by the marvellous Sheila Francisco – and also Lola (7 April), a Second World War time travel drama whose low budget shows that you can do impressive things with very little. Albert Serra’s Pacifiction (21 April) is an intoxicating descent into danger and, as with the Spanish filmmaker’s previous films, it may be divisive, but demands to be seen – even if just to form your own opinion.

Ben Affleck directs and stars in Air (7 April), which follows Nike’s revolutionary partnership with a young Michael Jordan. Affleck’s receiving some of the best reviews of his career for the film. Meanwhile, grisly horror Evil Dead Rise (21 April) has generated word-of-mouth hype since its premiere at South by Southwest.

Last month, the 48th César Awards ceremony took place and alongside trophies given to recent releases, David Fincher was bestowed the Honorary César. It looks like the director––who is in post-production on his Michael Fassbender-led crime thriller The Killer ahead of a November release––took the honor seriously as he watched all the Best Film nominees: Pacifiction, Forever Young, Rise, The Innocent, the evening’s winner The Night of the 12th.

Across the viewings, the only one he appreciated was reportedly Albert Serra’s Pacifiction. Star of the film and César Best Actor winner Benoît Magimel told Allocine that he went to a dinner featuring Fincher and Brad Pitt, who relayed the kind words about the film. Magimel said, “[Brad Pitt told me]: ‘David Fincher is pretty tough. In twenty years, I must have seen him about five times happy to see a film. Meaning, he doesn’t like anything.’ He said to me,...

Recently, there has been a consistent tide of well crafted and highly regarded films coming out of Spain. “Alcarràs,” “The Beasts,” “Lullaby,” “La Maternal,” “Prison 77,” to name just the five that the Spanish Academy Goyas singled out in early February.

This level of quality, over a short period, is getting noticed internationally. Last week the Glasgow Film Festival, Scotland’s largest, shone a light on eight films in its Viva el Cine Español program. A cultural moment is a strange beast, hard to fathom, but there are strong signals that Spanish Film is having one.

In addition to the aforementioned five, Glasgow added Andrea Bagney’s debut “Ramona,” “Wild Flowers,” from Jaime Rosales, another debut with Elena López Riera’s “The Water,” and a Penelope Cruz starrer, in Juan Diego Botto’s “On The Fringe.”

Glasgow’s Festival co-director Allison Gardner told Variety: “We seem to be seeing films...

Cannes’ Marché du Film has named Spain its Country of Honor for the upcoming 2023 edition which will take place May 16-24 during the 76th edition of the Festival de Cannes.

The Marché du Film will work with Icex Spain Trade & Investment and Icaa – Institute of Cinematography & Audiovisual Arts to showcase Spanish talent and content, ranging from cinema to documentary, animation and extended reality.

Spain follows India which became Cannes’ first official Country of Honor in 2022. The industry event launched the initiative last year to spotlight and celebrate different nations at each market edition.

Spain’s cinema sector has been having a banner 2023. Last month, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s debut feature “20,000 Species of Bees” won three awards at the Berlinale, while Albert Serra’s “Pacifiction” won two Cesar awards, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” won the Cesar award for best foreign film. Recent successes last year also include Carla Simón...

The Cannes film market, the Marché du Film, will this year pay tribute to the Spanish movie industry, naming Spain its official country of honor for 2023.

Spain is the Marché’s second country of honor, following India last year. The tribute is meant to spotlight a nation’s film industry across the spectrum, from features and documentaries to animation and extended reality. Spain’s ministries of trade and investment and its Institute of Cinematography & Audiovisual Arts (Icaa) will work together with the Marché to highlight Spanish content and talent in Cannes this year. The umbrella promotional group Cinema from Spain will again be on-site to boost the presence of Spanish industry professionals.

“We are proud to have Spain as our country of honor for this special market edition,” said Marché executive director Guillaume Esmiol. “For my first year as the head of the Marché, I am particularly grateful and thrilled...

While she had been working for two decades, Virginie Efira received much-deserved wider acclaim leading Benedetta and Sibyl a few years back. She returned to the festival circuit last year with a pair of staggeringly great performances, in Alice Winocour’s Paris Memories and Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children.

With both set to arrive in the U.S. over the next few months, along with playing at Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema over the next few days, the trailer for Winocour’s drama has now landed. The film, in which Efira picked up César award for Best Actress, follows her character trying to pick up the pieces of her life after experiencing a terrorist attack in Paris. Also starring Pacifiction lead Benoît Magimel and Claire Denis regular Grégoire Colin, the drama is another example of Winocour’s mastery of immersing her audience in the headspace...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSOn the Adamant.The Berlinale wrapped up over the weekend. The Golden Bear was awarded to Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant, while other major prizes went to Christian Petzold, Philippe Garrel, Angela Schanelec, and Dp Hélène Louvart. You can browse the full list of winners on Notebook, and keep your eyes peeled for our reports.In other festival news: Ruben Östlund will preside over this year’s Cannes jury, and the full lineup has been unveiled for Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA’s New Directors/New Films.The pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye—the first African woman to make a commercially distributed feature film—died last week at the age of 80. Writer and programmer Yasmina Price recently surfaced a thread of archival material,...

Music Box is unveiling the trailer for “Revoir Paris,” a French drama boasting a Cesar-winning performance by Virginie Efira. The movie, which bowed at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and played at Toronto, will have its New York premiere on June 23 at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Film Center.

A meditation on healing, the film tells the story of Mia (Efira), a married translator who survived a mass shooting in a Paris restaurant, and feels haunted by the trauma, yet unable to recollect memories of the tragic attack. Determined to reconstruct the sequence of events and reestablish a sense of normalcy, Mia finds herself repeatedly returning to the bistro where the shooting happened. In the process she forms bonds with fellow survivors, including banker Thomas (Benoît Magimel) and teenager Félicia (Nastya Golubeva). Efira, who just won a Cesar Award for her role in the film, stars opposite Magimel, the Cesar-winning actor of “Pacifiction,...

Dominik Moll’s investigative drama earns awards in Paris for best film, director, adapted screenplay and more.

Dominik Moll’s investigative drama The Night Of The 12th enjoyed a big night at France’s 48th annual César Awards, picking up six awards including best film of the year at a starry ceremony at Paris concert hall l’Olympia on Friday night.

The film, which started the night on 10 nominations, prevailed in a competitive category alongside Louis Garrel’s crime-infused romantic comedy The Innocent, Cédric Klapisch’s dance drama Rise, Albert Serra’s political thriller Pacifiction, and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s coming-of-age tale Forever Young.

Dominik Moll’s brooding procedural thriller “The Night of the 12th” won big at the 48th Cesar Awards Friday night in Paris.

Out of 10 nominations, “The Night of the 12th” picked up best film, director, male newcomer for Bastien Bouillon, supporting actor for Bouli Lanners, adapted screenplay and sound. Bouillon and Lanners star as two cops trying to solve the gruesome murder of a young woman. The film opened at Cannes in the Premieres section.

Caroline Benjo, who produced “The Night of the 12th” with Carole Scotta and Simon Arnal at Haut et Court, made a searing speech denouncing the violence against women. “When Dominic and Gilles came to us to make this film it was obvious that we (needed to address this issue) and that the perspective of men on this matter was crucial, and that filmmakers had to tell this story,” said Benjo. “A few days ago, Dominic...

The 46th César Awards, France’s top film honors, have been handed out in Paris, with Dominik Moll’s crime thriller The Night of the 12th winning the best picture trophy.

Moll’s The Night of the 12th, which premiered in Cannes last year, scored 10 César noms coming into the awards show, just behind Louis Garrel’s The Innocent, which picked up 11 nominations. Moll also won for best director, and Bouli Lanners earned the best supporting actor trophy for his performance in The Night of the 12th.

Cédric Klapisch’s Rise, about a ballet dancer (Marion Barbeau) who, after an injury, seeks a new future in contemporary dance, was up for 9 Césars, as was Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, a thriller featuring Benoît Magimel as a morally-challenged Haut-Commissaire on an island in French Polynesia.

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s dramedy Forever Young, Cedric Jimenez’s terrorism drama November, Eric Gravel’s family...

The Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival, also known as Cph:dox, has unveiled the full program of its 20th edition, which includes 200 new films, more than half of which are world premieres, sealing Cph:dox’s reputation as one of the leading events of its kind in Europe.

For the first time, all 13 films competing for the top Dox:Award are world premieres.

These include “A Storm Foretold,” the long-awaited doc on Donald Trump’s former adviser Roger Stone by Danish political journalist Christopher Guldbrandsen; established filmmaker Margreth Olin’s highly anticipated epic film “Songs of the Earth”; “A Tiger in Paradise,” a surreal journey into Swedish singer José González’ inner world by Ruben Östlund’s regular creative partners Mikel Cee Karlsson and Erik Hemmendorff; and “Total Trust” by Jialing Zhang (“One Child Nation”), described as “the first major film about the Chinese surveillance state (…) – a disturbing tale of technology, (self-) censorship and...