Is Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, in fact, a mystery? It certainly presents as one at its beginning, when a group of unlikely friends, whom we will come to know as “the shitheads,” are whisked away to the private island of billionaire-bro Miles Bron (Edward Norton). As Daniel Craig’s returning sleuth Benoit Blanc points out, “You’ve taken seven people, each of whom has a real-life reason to wish you harm, gathered them together on a remote island and placed the idea of your murder in their heads.” So far, so trad. The film’s setting isn’t as familiar […]

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The Tokyo Reels, a project by Subversive Film (Mohanad Yaqubi and Reem Shilleh), was first exhibited as an installation and mini film festival at documenta fifteen. This collection of 20 films depicting the Palestinian struggle was safeguarded for decades by Japanese activists before its preservation by Subversive Film. Following its restoration, the collection served as the basis for R21 AKA Restoring Solidarity (2022), set to have its North American premiere at this year’s True/False Film Festival. In November 2022, as R21 was having its world premiere at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam, we spoke with Yaqubi on transnational film […]

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Today, The Overlook Film Festival unveils the slate for its 2023 edition, to take place in New Orleans from March 30-April 2. The horror-focused festival will open with Universal’s Dracula reboot Renfield and close with Evil Dead Rise, the latest entry in the Evil Dead franchise. Additional programming includes interactive events, live performances, immersive programming and parties.  Several retrospective titles have also been announced, entailing a 30th anniversary screening of Joe Dante‘s Matinee, a 10th anniversary screening of Jim Jarmusch‘s Only Lovers Left Alive, Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film The Lodger accompanied by a live score and William Castle’s The Tingler “featuring surprise […]

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Today, Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA announce the lineup for New Directors/New Films 2023, which will run from March 29-April 9 in New York City. Boasting 27 feature films and 11 shorts, the 52nd edition of the festival will open with Savanah Leaf’s A24 film Earth Mama and conclude with Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Mutt, which recently won the Special Jury Award winner at Sundance. “We are thrilled to bookend the 2023 ND/NF edition with two remarkable features, directed by up-and-coming artists Savanah Leaf and Vuk Lungulov-Klorz, portraying tormented yet determined characters with sensitivity, authenticity, and a true inspiring artistic vision,” […]

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A Kickstarter campaign has been launched to secure funding for writer-director Cambria Matlow’s narrative short Why Dig When You Can Pluck, starring Sol Marina Crespo as a mother and filmmaker who does some soul searching on a family vacation. The Kickstarter will run from February 28 through March 23 as part of the platform’s month-long specialty program Long Story Short. Matlow’s goal is to raise $22,000 for production and distribution costs.  “Why Dig When You Can Pluck is my first narrative film after years spent making documentaries and I couldn’t be more excited to share this with the filmmaking community,” […]

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Mia Wasikowska’s first project in The States was the HBO series In Treatment. She was just 16 years old, but if you watched it then, you were probably in awe, like me, marveling at this seemingly fully formed acting artist, performing, with nuance and subtlety, well beyond her years. She continued to wow us with stellar work in Jane Eyre, Madame Bovary, Alice In Wonderland, Stoker, The Double, Tracks, Damsel and Bergman Island, to name a few. Her latest is an absolutely beautiful film called Blueback. In this woefully brief episode, she talks about the underwater acting she had to do […]

The post “The Reality of a Life of Acting All the Time Is Different From the Perception”: Mia Wasikowska (Back To One, Episode 242) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A tiny visual suture at the very beginning of Philippe Garrel’s The Plough inadvertently attests to two different formats being stitched together. The letters of the production company/financing body credits have slightly serrated edges against a dark grey background and clearly come from a digital file, while the subsequent dedication and title card have smooth-lined lettering against a perceptibly darker black, with a few scratches further confirming their celluloid origin. Somebody output those titles to 35mm, then scanned them back in, which speaks to differing deliverables standards for different parts of the chain, as well as to Garrel’s loyalty to the medium (he’s […]

The post Berlinale 2023: The Plough first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

MUBI has released the trailer for The Five Devils, French filmmaker Léa Mysius’s sophomore feature following her 2017 debut Ava. The film stars Adèle Exarchopolous as a woman whose daughter Vicky (Sally Dramé) possesses an unusual magical quality. The Five Devils had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it screened in the Director’s Fortnight section. The film’s official synopsis reads: Vicky, a strange and solitary little girl, has a magical gift: she can reproduce any scent she likes, and collects them in a series of carefully labeled jars. She has secretly captured the scent of Joanne, […]

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A woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Sissy St. Claire (Sophie von Haselberg) appears on a soundstage for her Saturday night television special. Like the tireless performers who came before her, St. Claire will spend the duration of the broadcast showcasing elaborate outfits, dramatic monologues, groan-worthy jokes, peppy musical numbers and an assortment of special guests (some human and others canine). Tonight is either her big break or the conclusion of a descent into madness—either way, don’t dare change that channel!  Give Me Pity!, the latest film from director Amanda Kramer, is a warped take on variety show […]

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Featured on our 25 New Faces of Independent Film list in 2019, A.V. Rockwell‘s directorial debut A Thousand and One is set to hit theaters next month. The film had its world premiere at Sundance in January, where it won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize. Teyana Taylor stars as Inez, a single mom whose first objective after being released from Rikers is reuniting with her six-year-old son Terry, who has been placed in the foster care system. With no legal alternatives, Inez kidnaps Terry and utilizes her Harlem-based support system to lay low and begin anew. Over a decade later, […]

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