If any part of you has been curious as to how French filmmaker Olivier Assayas spent the early days of the global pandemic, along comes “Suspended Time” to answer your question, with very much the answer you might expect: pretty comfortably, thanks for asking. Alternating a thinly fictionalised portrait of the artist isolating at his family’s country home with fully autobiographical narration by the director himself, this mildly amusing but vastly indulgent bagatelle feels a tardy entry in the first wave of lockdown cinema — too late to feel fresh, but still too soon to have accumulated much meaningful perspective on an experience we all remember too well. Assayas devotees will take some pleasure in its formal fillips and self-references. Others need not apply.
At its most interesting — and quietly gossipy, if you are so minded — “Suspended Time” could be read as a reply work of sorts to “Bergman Island,...
At its most interesting — and quietly gossipy, if you are so minded — “Suspended Time” could be read as a reply work of sorts to “Bergman Island,...
- 2/17/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The memes won’t let you forget, but 2019 was half a decade ago. That was also the year Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network––an odd return to the realm of his TV series Carlos, and subsequently picked up by Narcos-era Netflix––premiered at the Venice Film Festival. That was Assayas’ last feature, making the intervening period (Irma Vep for HBO aside) the longest dry patch of his 38-year career. The dexterous director returns this week to the Berlinale with the aptly titled Suspended Time, a personal essay wrapped up in an effortless comedy that shows no signs whatsoever of long gestation.
Naturally, it’s all the better for it. Appearing as both leading man and (not for the first time) director surrogate, Vincent Macaigne stars as Paul, a filmmaker surviving the summer of 2020 with his music-journalist brother Ettienne (Micha Lescot) and their new partners, Morgane and Carole, in the agreeable surrounds of their childhood home.
Naturally, it’s all the better for it. Appearing as both leading man and (not for the first time) director surrogate, Vincent Macaigne stars as Paul, a filmmaker surviving the summer of 2020 with his music-journalist brother Ettienne (Micha Lescot) and their new partners, Morgane and Carole, in the agreeable surrounds of their childhood home.
- 2/17/2024
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
No two words can strike fear into the heart of a critic quite like “Covid movie,” and yet with a director as accomplished as Olivier Assayas it seemed reasonable to hold out hope of something more than the low-key cringe humor of a neurotic germaphobe obsessing about masks and social distancing and possible grocery contamination. Sadly, that’s a big part of what you get in the tedious Suspended Time (Hors du Temps). Most of us would never think our experience in the early, anxious days of pandemic lockdown was of much interest to anyone outside our social pod, but filmmakers keep making that mistake. They need to stop.
Perhaps Assayas was so caught up in the meta film industry satire of his spry reimagining of Irma Vep for HBO that he couldn’t resist casting Vincent Macaigne again as another version of himself. Macaigne is mildly amusing as a film director named Paul,...
Perhaps Assayas was so caught up in the meta film industry satire of his spry reimagining of Irma Vep for HBO that he couldn’t resist casting Vincent Macaigne again as another version of himself. Macaigne is mildly amusing as a film director named Paul,...
- 2/17/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Follow French actors on Instagram, is the rule. Not even two weeks after Damien Bonnard let a clapperboard announce his involvement in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path remake, the great Vincent Macaigne––who gave perhaps last year’s single finest performance in Irma Vep––revealed an Olivier Assayas reunion: production’s just begun on their next collaboration (short? feature? series?) Hors du Temps, or Out of Time en Anglais, with the director’s once-regular Dp Eric Gautier on camera duties for the first time since 2012’s Something in the Air.
That, thus far, is that. I’ve done some digging (read: exact-phrase Google searches and logging into an old Cinando account) to little avail. Word last year had it he was working on something for Kristen Stewart (“in preparation” being the expectation-laden term) and some further digging (her IMDb page) suggests no projects currently have her on set. Inconclusive, sure,...
That, thus far, is that. I’ve done some digging (read: exact-phrase Google searches and logging into an old Cinando account) to little avail. Word last year had it he was working on something for Kristen Stewart (“in preparation” being the expectation-laden term) and some further digging (her IMDb page) suggests no projects currently have her on set. Inconclusive, sure,...
- 4/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
A Human Voice: Wiseman Explores Catharsis and Suppression in Tranquil Soliloquy
It’s no secret the Tolstoy household was also unhappy in its own unhappy way thanks to a myriad of diaries, letters, and perhaps the iconic masterworks of the author himself to prove it. The state of Leo and Sophia Tolstoy’s marriage is at the heart of Un Couple from perennial documentarian Frederick Wiseman, who presents a drastic change of pace from his well-researched explorations of events or noted institutions.
Penned by and starring Nathalie Boutefeu (who has appeared in many notable films and is married to celebrated cinematographer Eric Gautier), it’s an hour long one-woman showcase for the actor, presenting the inner turmoil of Sophia through a series of soliloquies culled from her letters to her husband and her diary.…...
It’s no secret the Tolstoy household was also unhappy in its own unhappy way thanks to a myriad of diaries, letters, and perhaps the iconic masterworks of the author himself to prove it. The state of Leo and Sophia Tolstoy’s marriage is at the heart of Un Couple from perennial documentarian Frederick Wiseman, who presents a drastic change of pace from his well-researched explorations of events or noted institutions.
Penned by and starring Nathalie Boutefeu (who has appeared in many notable films and is married to celebrated cinematographer Eric Gautier), it’s an hour long one-woman showcase for the actor, presenting the inner turmoil of Sophia through a series of soliloquies culled from her letters to her husband and her diary.…...
- 11/11/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn find love in the time of political corruption and international unrest.
The duo star in Claire Denis’ latest romance-thriller “Stars at Noon,” distributed by A24. Qualley plays a young American journalist who is stranded in present-day Nicaragua and falls in love with an enigmatic Englishman (Alwyn) who seems like her best chance of escape. However, she soon realizes that he may be in even greater danger than she is. Danny Ramirez and Benny Safdie also star in the film, premiering in theaters October 14 and debuting on Hulu October 28.
“Stars at Noon” won the Grand Prix at 2022 Cannes and screened at the New York Film Festival. Writer/director Denis adapted the screenplay from Denis Johnson’s novel “The Stars at Noon,” which is part love story, part political thriller.
Denis originally was set to collaborate again with “High Life” star Robert Pattison before he had to...
The duo star in Claire Denis’ latest romance-thriller “Stars at Noon,” distributed by A24. Qualley plays a young American journalist who is stranded in present-day Nicaragua and falls in love with an enigmatic Englishman (Alwyn) who seems like her best chance of escape. However, she soon realizes that he may be in even greater danger than she is. Danny Ramirez and Benny Safdie also star in the film, premiering in theaters October 14 and debuting on Hulu October 28.
“Stars at Noon” won the Grand Prix at 2022 Cannes and screened at the New York Film Festival. Writer/director Denis adapted the screenplay from Denis Johnson’s novel “The Stars at Noon,” which is part love story, part political thriller.
Denis originally was set to collaborate again with “High Life” star Robert Pattison before he had to...
- 9/29/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
A slow burn that never quite bursts into flame, “Both Sides of the Blade” is likely to appeal most to those who are already fans of director Claire Denis. That said, would anyone turn down the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with her luminous leading lady, Juliette Binoche?
Certainly not Jean, smitten lover of Binoche’s enigmatic Sara. The film opens with the two of them on vacation, frolicking in the ocean and unable to keep their hands off each other. The rather mournful score from Tindersticks, which could have been lifted from a 1970s divorce drama, is our early hint at troubles unseen.
Jean and Sara, it turns out, have been together for nearly a decade and still seem to be madly in love. But then we notice that he has to ask for her credit card when he wants to go shopping. She spots her ex-boyfriend...
Certainly not Jean, smitten lover of Binoche’s enigmatic Sara. The film opens with the two of them on vacation, frolicking in the ocean and unable to keep their hands off each other. The rather mournful score from Tindersticks, which could have been lifted from a 1970s divorce drama, is our early hint at troubles unseen.
Jean and Sara, it turns out, have been together for nearly a decade and still seem to be madly in love. But then we notice that he has to ask for her credit card when he wants to go shopping. She spots her ex-boyfriend...
- 7/7/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
When two veteran stars collide in a romantic triangle psychodrama directed by French auteur Claire Denis, the alchemy is powerful. “Both Sides of the Blade,” adapted by Denis and Christine Angot from her 2018 novel “Un tournant de la vie,” won raves and the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2022 Berlinale. That’s partly because Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) and Vincent Lindon (Palme d’Or-winner “Titane”), who had never worked together before, struck sparks on their austere pandemic set.
“There was some tension sometimes because of his nature,” Binoche told IndieWire during a recent Zoom call. “His need of controlling is very strong. And I’m not like that at all. So I was a little taken aback by that situation. But at the same time, I had to accept it, because there was no other way. And Claire was letting it happen. She’s not a...
“There was some tension sometimes because of his nature,” Binoche told IndieWire during a recent Zoom call. “His need of controlling is very strong. And I’m not like that at all. So I was a little taken aback by that situation. But at the same time, I had to accept it, because there was no other way. And Claire was letting it happen. She’s not a...
- 7/7/2022
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Interviewing Claire Denis keeps one on their toes. Receptive to good ideas and quick to challenge any false note, the director—by most metrics one of our greatest, at this point so distinguished she’s almost a concept unto herself—would rather engage than respond, turning this into something more akin to tennis match than conversation.
It helped that topic du jour was Both Sides of the Blade, among her best in recent years and something in which she’s clearly taken pride—no area seemed to lack interest, no idea worth dropping once we’d moved to an ostensibly different point. Talking on a chilly March afternoon one day out from its American premiere, Denis was quick to note the space:
Claire Denis: This is a weird place.
The Film Stage: This hotel’s a weird place?
No, this… scene. Yeah.
I saw the balcony and couldn’t help thinking of the film.
It helped that topic du jour was Both Sides of the Blade, among her best in recent years and something in which she’s clearly taken pride—no area seemed to lack interest, no idea worth dropping once we’d moved to an ostensibly different point. Talking on a chilly March afternoon one day out from its American premiere, Denis was quick to note the space:
Claire Denis: This is a weird place.
The Film Stage: This hotel’s a weird place?
No, this… scene. Yeah.
I saw the balcony and couldn’t help thinking of the film.
- 7/6/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
You don't need a double edge to cut the atmosphere of Claire Denis' Both Sides Of The Blade like a knife. Sometimes the air of this intelligent love triangle drama feels thick with lust, while at others there's a fog of barely suppressed fury or a miasma of doubt, often emphasised by the tight, interior framing from cinematographer Eric Gautier.
It's surely no accident that the film's opening moments, showing married couple Sara (Juliette Binoche) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) sharing holiday moments together in sun-dappled waves against a backdrop of almost syrupy scoring feels just a little bit too "perfect". Once the pair of them are back on home turf, Denis and her co-writer Christine Angot - who previously collaborated on Let The Sunshine In and who are adapting Angot's Un tournant de la Vie (A Turning Point In Life) here, allow elements of their lives together emerge, while also retaining.
It's surely no accident that the film's opening moments, showing married couple Sara (Juliette Binoche) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) sharing holiday moments together in sun-dappled waves against a backdrop of almost syrupy scoring feels just a little bit too "perfect". Once the pair of them are back on home turf, Denis and her co-writer Christine Angot - who previously collaborated on Let The Sunshine In and who are adapting Angot's Un tournant de la Vie (A Turning Point In Life) here, allow elements of their lives together emerge, while also retaining.
- 6/8/2022
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Immediately setting a buoyant, vibrant tone that carries through the rest of the film, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s Anaïs in Love makes one of 2022’s finest debuts. The French comedy is a story of waywardness and desire told with an optimistic view, following a spirited young woman (a great Anaïs Demoustier) who begins an affair with an older man (Denis Podalydès) and then falls in love with his novelist wife (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi).
Ahead of Anaïs‘ U.S. release I spoke with the writer-director about being inspired by Catherine Deneuve, the breathless cinematography, why she included a clip from John Cassavetes’ Opening Night, and establishing a tone.
The Film Stage: For your main character, played by Anaïs Demoustier, you kept the same first name. Did you write the film with her in mind? And how did she shape the project?
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet: So Anaïs Demoustier and I have been working together...
Ahead of Anaïs‘ U.S. release I spoke with the writer-director about being inspired by Catherine Deneuve, the breathless cinematography, why she included a clip from John Cassavetes’ Opening Night, and establishing a tone.
The Film Stage: For your main character, played by Anaïs Demoustier, you kept the same first name. Did you write the film with her in mind? And how did she shape the project?
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet: So Anaïs Demoustier and I have been working together...
- 4/28/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: IFC Films has set a July 8 stateside release date for Claire Denis’ Berlin Film Festival winner Fire, starring Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon.
The movie, which won Denis the Best Director prize in Berlin, is a love triangle story about a woman caught between two men, her long-time partner and his best friend, her former lover.
Denis wrote the script with French novelist Christine Angot. The film also stars Mati Diop, Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica and Hana Magimel.
DoP is Eric Gautier, whose credits include Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is The Purest White, and the film was produced by Curiosa Film with associate producer Jacqueline de Croÿ of Dear Gaia Films.
Set in the winter in Paris, Fire (previously known internationally as Both Sides Of The Blade) tells the tale of a fiery love triangle involving Jean (Lindon) and Sara (Binoche) who have been living together for 10 years. When they first met,...
The movie, which won Denis the Best Director prize in Berlin, is a love triangle story about a woman caught between two men, her long-time partner and his best friend, her former lover.
Denis wrote the script with French novelist Christine Angot. The film also stars Mati Diop, Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica and Hana Magimel.
DoP is Eric Gautier, whose credits include Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is The Purest White, and the film was produced by Curiosa Film with associate producer Jacqueline de Croÿ of Dear Gaia Films.
Set in the winter in Paris, Fire (previously known internationally as Both Sides Of The Blade) tells the tale of a fiery love triangle involving Jean (Lindon) and Sara (Binoche) who have been living together for 10 years. When they first met,...
- 2/25/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
In Fire a romance breaks down and threatens to break up in a stylish apartment overlooking the sweet Parisian skyline. The director is of course Claire Denis, a filmmaker whose last work began in a place that looked like Eden and ended in a spaceship plummeting toward no less than a black hole. A baroque melodrama that might just maybe be a trolling farce, Fire‘s concerns are of a more earthbound variety–though if the insistent strings of Tindersticks’ score are something to go by, they are of no less importance. (Yeah right.)
Fire finds Denis collaborating for the second time with playwright Christine Angot, with whom she made 2018’s Let the Sunshine In, now the first of what has become a trilogy with Juliette Binoche. The French actress does her thing again as one half of this film’s wilting relationship, playing Sara, a radio host who used...
Fire finds Denis collaborating for the second time with playwright Christine Angot, with whom she made 2018’s Let the Sunshine In, now the first of what has become a trilogy with Juliette Binoche. The French actress does her thing again as one half of this film’s wilting relationship, playing Sara, a radio host who used...
- 2/12/2022
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
“Fire” begins in water: a wide, rippling expanse of Mediterranean blue under a cloudless sky, displaced and disrupted by two whirling human bodies. Sara (Juliette Binoche) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) tussle in the otherwise empty ocean as though they’ve just discovered weightlessness, while Eric Gautier’s camera lingers on skin touching skin under the shimmer. The lovers are, we guess, on vacation, though in this immediately seductive opening scene, they seem suspended in another ecstatic reality altogether.
It’s no spoiler to say we’ll never see them like this again in Claire Denis’ frank, hot-blooded relationship drama; most relationships only have select moments of such removed bliss, after all. But we frequently grieve for this sunlit simplicity in the messy, emotionally fraught and very Parisian pileup of desires, regrets and jealousies that follows. “Fire” is a love triangle of unusually elegant geometry, with multiple romantic histories and phantom...
It’s no spoiler to say we’ll never see them like this again in Claire Denis’ frank, hot-blooded relationship drama; most relationships only have select moments of such removed bliss, after all. But we frequently grieve for this sunlit simplicity in the messy, emotionally fraught and very Parisian pileup of desires, regrets and jealousies that follows. “Fire” is a love triangle of unusually elegant geometry, with multiple romantic histories and phantom...
- 2/12/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The latest movie from French filmmaker Claire Denis, Fire (or Both Sides Of The Blade), premieres tonight at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Ahead of the screening, Denis, her producer Olivier Delbosc, and their cast, French acting royalty duo Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon, co-starring in a movie for the first time, discussed the process of making the film during the Covid lockdown in France.
“The only way we could communicate for a few months was by telephone,” said Delbosc on the development process, which involved Denis writing the screenplay with Christine Angot. “We only got together visually when we had the first version of the screenplay.”
The movie was both developed and shot during different stages of lockdown in France, but Denis said the unusual process actually helped to bring her and her cast closer together, making them a filmmaking family.
“There was a trust. We could go very far without being afraid.
Ahead of the screening, Denis, her producer Olivier Delbosc, and their cast, French acting royalty duo Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon, co-starring in a movie for the first time, discussed the process of making the film during the Covid lockdown in France.
“The only way we could communicate for a few months was by telephone,” said Delbosc on the development process, which involved Denis writing the screenplay with Christine Angot. “We only got together visually when we had the first version of the screenplay.”
The movie was both developed and shot during different stages of lockdown in France, but Denis said the unusual process actually helped to bring her and her cast closer together, making them a filmmaking family.
“There was a trust. We could go very far without being afraid.
- 2/12/2022
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
IFC Films has nabbed U.S. rights to “Fire,” the new drama from celebrated French director Claire Denis. The pact marks the first major domestic deal of the Berlinale 2022 competition.
World premiering next week at the Berlin Film Festival, “Fire” is headlined by two of France’s biggest stars, Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) and Vincent Lindon (“Titane”). The pair have never been in a film together.
IFC Films has a long history with both Denis and Binoche. The director-driven distribution company previously handled Denis’ “Let The Sunshine In,” which starred Binoche, and “White Material.” Binoche also appeared in such as IFC releases as Olivier Assayas’ “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “Non-Fiction,” as well as Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy.”
Set in the winter in Paris, the film tells the tale of a fiery love triangle involving Jean (Lindon) and Sara (Binoche) who have been living together for 10 years. When they first met,...
World premiering next week at the Berlin Film Festival, “Fire” is headlined by two of France’s biggest stars, Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) and Vincent Lindon (“Titane”). The pair have never been in a film together.
IFC Films has a long history with both Denis and Binoche. The director-driven distribution company previously handled Denis’ “Let The Sunshine In,” which starred Binoche, and “White Material.” Binoche also appeared in such as IFC releases as Olivier Assayas’ “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “Non-Fiction,” as well as Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy.”
Set in the winter in Paris, the film tells the tale of a fiery love triangle involving Jean (Lindon) and Sara (Binoche) who have been living together for 10 years. When they first met,...
- 2/3/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy and Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
The story of ‘Into the wild’ is so outrageous, that it couldn’t be anything else but true. In 1990, twenty year-old Christopher McCandless (Chris) graduated from Emory University with straight A’s. Instead of going into Harvard law or venturing into the world to become a man of success, he chose the road less traveled. A self-confessed disciple of Thoreau, Tolstoy and Jack London, he wished to escape the lies of civilization. He planned to live a solitary life in the midst of the ‘most ancient of human conditions’. So, he donated his college fund of $24000 to charity, burnt up all his credit and ID cards, abandoned his car in the middle of the desert and set out on foot to Alaska. Where he met a tragic end.
Now, let me digress a bit to prepare the background for my somewhat biased review. It’s been hardly two weeks since my convocation.
Now, let me digress a bit to prepare the background for my somewhat biased review. It’s been hardly two weeks since my convocation.
- 10/16/2021
- by Prem
- Talking Films
A mood of heightened melodrama gives way to something strangely enchanting in Petite Solange, the story of a 13-year-old girl coming to terms with the shattering notion that her parents’ love (and for that matter anyone’s) might not last. The director is Axelle Ropert, a French critic, actor, writer, and filmmaker whose career has pivoted between the genre films she and her partner, Serge Bozon, have collaborated on and her own body of work behind the camera. That personal side to her oeuvre has always tended more toward the familial and the bittersweet, just as it has proven Ropert a keen proponent of the Tolstoyan idea that happy families are only intriguing when torn apart.
Petite Solange centers around the unlikely named Maserati clan: a happy family and one ripe for the tearing. Newcomer Jade Springer gives an excellent performance as the eponymous teen, a young woman who finds...
Petite Solange centers around the unlikely named Maserati clan: a happy family and one ripe for the tearing. Newcomer Jade Springer gives an excellent performance as the eponymous teen, a young woman who finds...
- 8/11/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Olivier Assayas takes a very different trip into silent movie nostalgia, with a director’s ill-fated attempt to remake the 1915 serial Les Vampires. Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung is cast as the erotic rooftop nightcrawler Irma Vep! We see the state of Paris filmmaking in the mid-90s, with a clueless, frustrated director (Jean-Pierre Léaud) out of ideas — what business has Irma Vep in the modern world? Meanwhile, Cheung dons her vinyl catsuit for a personal creepy crawly mission — just to see if it gives her a thrill. Criterion’s special edition contains both a full episode of the silent serial plus a must-see documentary on the life and work of the legendary Musidora, a major sex symbol of the silent era.
Irma Vep
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1074
1996 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 27, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Bernard Nissile,...
Irma Vep
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1074
1996 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 27, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Bernard Nissile,...
- 4/17/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Films don’t get much more anticipated than those from Claire Denis. Perhaps the most consistent director working today, she was all set to follow High Life with another Robert Pattinson collaboration, The Stars at Noon, but the pandemic interrupted those plans and so she embarked with some of her most trusted collaborators for a smaller scale new film titled Fire.
Led by Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon, Mati Diop, Grégoire Colin, Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica, and Binoche’s daughter Hana Magimel, the first image has now arrived, seen above courtesy of Le Inrockuptibles for the film that’s an adaptation of Christine Angot’s new novel Un tournant de la vie.
As Richard Brody translates, Claire Denis said, “Honestly, I knew, in real life, the protagonists of this story too well and I was afraid that it would be too hard for me. Christine told me we’d change things.
Led by Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon, Mati Diop, Grégoire Colin, Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica, and Binoche’s daughter Hana Magimel, the first image has now arrived, seen above courtesy of Le Inrockuptibles for the film that’s an adaptation of Christine Angot’s new novel Un tournant de la vie.
As Richard Brody translates, Claire Denis said, “Honestly, I knew, in real life, the protagonists of this story too well and I was afraid that it would be too hard for me. Christine told me we’d change things.
- 3/18/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Production has wrapped on Fire (Feu), the latest movie from French filmmaking royalty Claire Denis. Pic stars heavyweight actors Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon, appearing opposite each other for the first time, in a love triangle story about a woman caught between two men – her long-time partner and his best friend, her former lover.
This is the project that was previously reported as being called Radioscopie and was moved swiftly into production when Denis’ The Stars At Noon, set to star Robert Pattinson and Margaret Qualley, was delayed – that movie is now expect to shoot as soon as April.
Fire also stars Mati Diop, Gregoire Colin, Bulle Ogier, and Issa Perica in the cast. It part shot at the famed Radio France headquarters Maison de la Radio in Paris, where the daily cultural radio program Radioscopie has been broadcasting since 1968.
Olivier Delbosc is producing the movie for his Curiosa Films.
This is the project that was previously reported as being called Radioscopie and was moved swiftly into production when Denis’ The Stars At Noon, set to star Robert Pattinson and Margaret Qualley, was delayed – that movie is now expect to shoot as soon as April.
Fire also stars Mati Diop, Gregoire Colin, Bulle Ogier, and Issa Perica in the cast. It part shot at the famed Radio France headquarters Maison de la Radio in Paris, where the daily cultural radio program Radioscopie has been broadcasting since 1968.
Olivier Delbosc is producing the movie for his Curiosa Films.
- 2/3/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
High among our list of most-anticipated films of 2021 is Claire Denis’ Fire, which quickly went into production while her adaptation of The Stars at Noon got delayed. Reuniting with Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon, not much was known about the film outside of it being set in the world of French radio. Now, as filming concludes, many more details have arrived.
Also reuniting with Denis are Mati Diop and Grégoire Colin (pictured above in the incredible 35 Shots of Rum), who have been revealed as part of the cast alongside Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica, and Hana Magimelm. Cineuropa also reports novelist Christine Angot reteamed with Denis for the script, following their collaboration on Let the Sunshine In, while cinematography is from Eric Gautier. Check out a new synopsis below, which actually makes no mention of it being set in the radio world:
Fire tells the tale of a passionate love triangle.
Also reuniting with Denis are Mati Diop and Grégoire Colin (pictured above in the incredible 35 Shots of Rum), who have been revealed as part of the cast alongside Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica, and Hana Magimelm. Cineuropa also reports novelist Christine Angot reteamed with Denis for the script, following their collaboration on Let the Sunshine In, while cinematography is from Eric Gautier. Check out a new synopsis below, which actually makes no mention of it being set in the radio world:
Fire tells the tale of a passionate love triangle.
- 1/28/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Club Fattoush is a real-life bar and arts space in the Israeli port city of Haifa: a kind of bohemian, liberal-minded gathering point for a broad array of residents, be they Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish or Arabic, gay or straight, and so on. Veteran Haifa-born filmmaker Amos Gitai is sufficiently enamored of the venue to have made a feature-length fictional celebration of its diversity and cultural import. Enter “Laila in Haifa,” a spaghetti pile of connected and disconnected narrative strands, revolving around a series of Fattoush employees and patrons over a single evening of business. It’s enough to convince you to drop into the place should you ever find yourself in town: It’d almost certainly offer a better time than “Laila in Haifa,” which, for all its good intentions and social interests, is among Gitai’s most listless films, not even propped up by his usual formal rigor.
- 9/8/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
“Jazz is Paris and Paris is jazz,” spoke-sang Malcolm McLaren a quarter-century ago, though the statement is valid as ever today: Since the end of World War I, when a number of African American soldiers settled in Paris — and still others left their music behind — the city has become a kind of world capital for jazz, with clubs still packing in audiences around town. “The Eddy” is named for one such dive, located in a neighborhood far from the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and other historic sites where Audrey Hepburn twirled in “Funny Face.”
The new eight-part Netflix series, reverse-engineered from a raft of stellar jazz songs by “Jagged Little Pill” producer Glen Ballard, aims to show audiences a different side of Paris from the touristy one mass-produced on picture postcards. It’s the part of the city where North African immigrants and descendants of France’s fraught...
The new eight-part Netflix series, reverse-engineered from a raft of stellar jazz songs by “Jagged Little Pill” producer Glen Ballard, aims to show audiences a different side of Paris from the touristy one mass-produced on picture postcards. It’s the part of the city where North African immigrants and descendants of France’s fraught...
- 2/28/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Hirokazu Kore-eda is without a doubt the leading name of contemporary Japanese cinema and one of the finest filmmakers on the global level. Last year’s triumph in Cannes with “Shoplifters” could be seen as the crown of his auteur career so far, so he decided to take a leap forward, into the unknown with his first film made outside of Japan and Japanese context. “The Truth”, realized through French-Japanese co-production was selected to open this year’s edition of Venice.
Both of the decisions, the filmmaker’s one to make a new film in a quick succession, and the festival’s one to give it such an honourable spot in the programme feel a bit rushed. “The Truth” is still a debut of sorts, and it shows, it is far more French than Japanese in the terms of the story, cast and crew, so the director had to face...
Both of the decisions, the filmmaker’s one to make a new film in a quick succession, and the festival’s one to give it such an honourable spot in the programme feel a bit rushed. “The Truth” is still a debut of sorts, and it shows, it is far more French than Japanese in the terms of the story, cast and crew, so the director had to face...
- 9/2/2019
- by Marko Stojiljković
- AsianMoviePulse
In the latest film from Hirokazu Kore-eda (director of the 2018 Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters”), Catherine Deneuve plays a legendary French film star who has just published a memoir titled, like this movie, “The Truth.” It’s a promise that her book comes nowhere near fulfilling; as for Kore-eda’s first film made outside his native Japan, it’s a fascinating exploration of the fallibility of memory and of how the truths we tell ourselves so frequently outweigh an empirical certainty.
Deneuve’s Fabienne falls into the great screen tradition of actresses capable of great emotion on stage or screen but less so off. (Think Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in “All About Eve” or Gena Rowlands’ Myrtle Gordon in “Opening Night.”) She also shares some DNA with Ingrid Bergman’s musician in “Autumn Sonata” or Shirley MacLaine’s movie star in “Postcards From the Edge” — have we acknowledged how much...
Deneuve’s Fabienne falls into the great screen tradition of actresses capable of great emotion on stage or screen but less so off. (Think Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in “All About Eve” or Gena Rowlands’ Myrtle Gordon in “Opening Night.”) She also shares some DNA with Ingrid Bergman’s musician in “Autumn Sonata” or Shirley MacLaine’s movie star in “Postcards From the Edge” — have we acknowledged how much...
- 8/28/2019
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
It’s always an odd feeling when you’re completely out of step with your colleagues about a film. It’s rare that I’m one of the only ones not to like something everyone else loves, but here we are. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Ash Is Purest White in the least, I just couldn’t quite understand what the fuss was all about. There’s some gorgeous cinematography (from Dp Eric Gautier), a terrific lead performance, and some genuinely moving moments. There’s also some very odd choices, poor pacing, a bloated running time, and a sense that there’s a few too many right turns. It’s an interesting film, just not quite one I’d recommend to you. The movie is a crime drama at times, a romance at times, and apparently a comedy at others. Labeled a tragicomedy set in part...
- 3/16/2019
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
One of the ways Jia Zhangke has distinguished himself as both a leading Chinese filmmaker and a masterful director is that his images have the uncanny ability to encompass past, present, and future. Humanity fills his every frame, even if the most prominent visual element is a landscape. And when your subject is China — how a country and its people wrestle with massive shifts — it makes for a distinctly personal kind of epic, one that has put Jia in the front ranks of directors in the nearly 20 years since his youths-in-turmoil masterpiece, “Platform,” put him on the global stage.
That where we are/where we’ve been/where we’re going dynamic has, over his career, lent itself superbly to Jia’s fascination with triptych storytelling. With his latest film, the crime-romance “Ash Is Purest White” — once again spotlighting a superb performance by Zhao Tao, his longtime creative partner and...
That where we are/where we’ve been/where we’re going dynamic has, over his career, lent itself superbly to Jia’s fascination with triptych storytelling. With his latest film, the crime-romance “Ash Is Purest White” — once again spotlighting a superb performance by Zhao Tao, his longtime creative partner and...
- 3/14/2019
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
In two weeks, Jia Zhangke’s new epic of crime and romance, Ash Is Purest White, will arrive in the U.S. courtesy of Cohen Media Group. The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, his latest film follows Zhao Tao’s character of Qiao on a decades-spanning journey. We’re pleased to premiere an exclusive clip, featuring Qiao under siege leading up to the film’s major turning point and a tour de force setpiece of filmmaking from the director.
In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”
See our exclusive clip below along with...
In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”
See our exclusive clip below along with...
- 3/1/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, Jia Zhangke is returning this spring with a new epic Ash Is Purest White. Following Zhao Tao’s character on a decades-spanning journey of crime, romance, and reflection, it’s one of the best films of 2019, and now Cohen Media Group has unveiled the new trailer.
In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”
See the trailer and poster below and watch the director’s recent iPhone-shot short film here.
A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu Ash Is Purest White begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao...
In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”
See the trailer and poster below and watch the director’s recent iPhone-shot short film here.
A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu Ash Is Purest White begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao...
- 2/2/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Jia Zhangke embarks once again on a triptych that highlights the changes China has experienced in the 21st century, through a long drama revolving around a gangster’s girlfriend and her life during three different decades.
“Ash Is Purest White” is screening at Toronto International Film Festival
The story begins in Shanxi, a dying coal town, where Qiao, a modern, feisty local beauty spends her time with her boyfriend, Guo Bin, a local gang boss and taking care of her father, who insists on fighting for the coal workers’ rights, although in an embarrassing fashion. Qiao is not Bin’s woman, as she carries herself as an equal among gangsters. When a group of young thugs starts making noise in the town, the clash with Bin’s gang is inevitable, and in the film’s most violent scene, Qiao ends up saving her boyfriend by shooting a gun, in a...
“Ash Is Purest White” is screening at Toronto International Film Festival
The story begins in Shanxi, a dying coal town, where Qiao, a modern, feisty local beauty spends her time with her boyfriend, Guo Bin, a local gang boss and taking care of her father, who insists on fighting for the coal workers’ rights, although in an embarrassing fashion. Qiao is not Bin’s woman, as she carries herself as an equal among gangsters. When a group of young thugs starts making noise in the town, the clash with Bin’s gang is inevitable, and in the film’s most violent scene, Qiao ends up saving her boyfriend by shooting a gun, in a...
- 9/8/2018
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Coming off his Palme d’Or win for Shoplifters (our review), Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is embarking on his French-language debut, featuring two of France’s greatest stars. Earlier this year it was confirmed that Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve would be leading his new feature, and now another actor has joined the project, which is now titled La Verite (aka The Truth).
Ethan Hawke, currently in the midst of a stellar year with First Reformed and Blaze, will join the film, also starring Ludivine Sagnier. A meta story involving a star of French cinema (Deneuve) and the relationship with her daughter, played by Binoche, Hawke will play the role of Binoche’s husband. Shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier, who most recently worked on Jia Zhangke’s stellar Cannes premiere Ash Is Purest White, production begins this October and November in France.
Producer Vincent Maraval told Screen Daily, “It’s...
Ethan Hawke, currently in the midst of a stellar year with First Reformed and Blaze, will join the film, also starring Ludivine Sagnier. A meta story involving a star of French cinema (Deneuve) and the relationship with her daughter, played by Binoche, Hawke will play the role of Binoche’s husband. Shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier, who most recently worked on Jia Zhangke’s stellar Cannes premiere Ash Is Purest White, production begins this October and November in France.
Producer Vincent Maraval told Screen Daily, “It’s...
- 7/16/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Cannes ’18 Review by Peter BelsitoZhao Tao and Liao Fan star in Jia Zhang-ke’s chronicle of the relationship between a low-level Chinese crook and the woman who goes to prison for him.Liao Fan, center, and cast in ‘Ash Is Purest White’
This long Chinese drama of a decidedly minor crook and his long suffering girlfriend was one of the better films I saw at Cannes.
Qiao is a local beauty who takes no crap from the men that frequent the gambling den in the back of a nightclub dominated by the presence of her low level mobster boyfriend Guo Bin.
While everyone else is busy sucking up to Bin, Qiao is a woman who refuses to be intimidated by the macho environment; she greets Bin with a sharp but affectionate bite on the shoulder and gives playful thumps to the regulars in a scene that instantly establishes the character as no mere decorative prop.
This long Chinese drama of a decidedly minor crook and his long suffering girlfriend was one of the better films I saw at Cannes.
Qiao is a local beauty who takes no crap from the men that frequent the gambling den in the back of a nightclub dominated by the presence of her low level mobster boyfriend Guo Bin.
While everyone else is busy sucking up to Bin, Qiao is a woman who refuses to be intimidated by the macho environment; she greets Bin with a sharp but affectionate bite on the shoulder and gives playful thumps to the regulars in a scene that instantly establishes the character as no mere decorative prop.
- 5/29/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
After winning the Palme d’Or for his latest drama Shoplifters (our review), the always-prolific Hirokazu Kore-eda is already embarking on his next project, and it’s perhaps fitting after his win on the Croisette that he’ll be directing two of France’s greatest stars. Last month it was confirmed that Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve would be leading his new feature, and now a title, synopsis, and additional cast & crew have been unveiled.
Titled The Truth About Catherine, actress Ludivine Sagnier, has also joined the film, which marks Kore-eda’s first film set outside Japan and it will be shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier, who most recently worked on Jia Zhangke’s stellar Cannes premiere Ash Is Purest White.
“Kore-eda’s another member of the Wild Bunch family who is back… this film is completely different from his past works,” producer Vincent Maraval told Screen Daily. “It’s...
Titled The Truth About Catherine, actress Ludivine Sagnier, has also joined the film, which marks Kore-eda’s first film set outside Japan and it will be shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier, who most recently worked on Jia Zhangke’s stellar Cannes premiere Ash Is Purest White.
“Kore-eda’s another member of the Wild Bunch family who is back… this film is completely different from his past works,” producer Vincent Maraval told Screen Daily. “It’s...
- 5/22/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A long and melancholy summation of better movies the brilliant Jia Zhangke has made before, “Ash Is Purest White” finds China’s most prominent filmmaker wistfully replaying the hits in order to further romanticize some of the fixations that have always dominated his work. The passage of time, the sweep of modernity, and the outlaw violence that can be traced back to the Cultural Revolution unsurprisingly come to define this fractured saga of a small-time gangster and the girl who was always by his side, as the writer-director spins an epic tale that never quite captures the poetry of its English title. It’s a loveless love story, told across three parts, five different camera types, and 17 years of change — it’s a movie that often feels like a mega-mix of Jia’s greatest hits, but one that rehashes them with precious little of the ineffable grace that make each...
- 5/11/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The clutch of Asian films in this year’s Cannes Official Selection isn’t the biggest ever but may be one of the most anticipated in recent years.
Three of the four Asian titles in the main competition are by directors with a high-profile Cannes track record. The fourth is a competition first-timer.
The main competition lineup includes a long-awaited return for former Cannes juror Lee Chang-dong (“Secret Sunshine”) with “Burning.” The film is an adaptation of the short story “Barn Burning” by Haruki Murakami (“Norwegian Wood”), which was first published in the New Yorker. With Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yuen and Jeon Jong-seo in the three lead roles, the film’s trailer is currently scorching the Internet.
A record number of Chinese films were submitted to Cannes this year. Three were chosen, with one making it into the competition. Auteur Jia Zhangke is returning to the Croisette with his biggest-budget...
Three of the four Asian titles in the main competition are by directors with a high-profile Cannes track record. The fourth is a competition first-timer.
The main competition lineup includes a long-awaited return for former Cannes juror Lee Chang-dong (“Secret Sunshine”) with “Burning.” The film is an adaptation of the short story “Barn Burning” by Haruki Murakami (“Norwegian Wood”), which was first published in the New Yorker. With Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yuen and Jeon Jong-seo in the three lead roles, the film’s trailer is currently scorching the Internet.
A record number of Chinese films were submitted to Cannes this year. Three were chosen, with one making it into the competition. Auteur Jia Zhangke is returning to the Croisette with his biggest-budget...
- 4/12/2018
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Vincent Lindon stars as journalist investigating saintly apparition
Paris-based Memento Films International (Mfi) will launch sales on French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli’s upcoming drama The Apparition at the forthcoming edition of Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 12-16).
Vincent Lindon will star as a journalist sent on a mission by the Vatican to investigate reports of a saintly apparition in a small French village. What he discovers shakes his personal beliefs to the core.
The $8.1m (€7.7m) drama is due to shoot early 2017 for a spring 2018 delivery. Olivier Delbosc’s Paris-based Curiosa Films is producing.
In the meantime, Lindon, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for best actor for his performance in social drama The Measure Of A Man in 2015, will hit the big screen this year in the role of Auguste Rodin in Jacques Doillon’s bio-pic Rodin capturing the life of the legendary French sculptor.
Other Apparition...
Paris-based Memento Films International (Mfi) will launch sales on French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli’s upcoming drama The Apparition at the forthcoming edition of Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 12-16).
Vincent Lindon will star as a journalist sent on a mission by the Vatican to investigate reports of a saintly apparition in a small French village. What he discovers shakes his personal beliefs to the core.
The $8.1m (€7.7m) drama is due to shoot early 2017 for a spring 2018 delivery. Olivier Delbosc’s Paris-based Curiosa Films is producing.
In the meantime, Lindon, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for best actor for his performance in social drama The Measure Of A Man in 2015, will hit the big screen this year in the role of Auguste Rodin in Jacques Doillon’s bio-pic Rodin capturing the life of the legendary French sculptor.
Other Apparition...
- 1/10/2017
- ScreenDaily
Prime Time: Gitai Revisits the Assassination of Israeli Prime Minister
Israeli auteur Amos Gitai reenacts the final moments of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin prior to his assassination during the Oslo peace talks with Palestine twenty years ago. Laborious in its attempt to convey the political unrest at home which eventually resulted in Rabin’s murder, Gitai crafts the portrait as a docu-drama, mixing newsreel footage with performance. The result is a sometimes intense, yet professorial endeavor on the dangerousness of extremist religion and the degrading aftershocks which halted a progression towards peace. Gitai keeps the tone at a steady simmer and the film manages to be an unsettling reflection of a country perilously divided of a relatively recent tragedy which pitched the turmoil into a tunnel where a light at the end has yet to be conceived.
On October 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated. Gitai focuses specifically on...
Israeli auteur Amos Gitai reenacts the final moments of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin prior to his assassination during the Oslo peace talks with Palestine twenty years ago. Laborious in its attempt to convey the political unrest at home which eventually resulted in Rabin’s murder, Gitai crafts the portrait as a docu-drama, mixing newsreel footage with performance. The result is a sometimes intense, yet professorial endeavor on the dangerousness of extremist religion and the degrading aftershocks which halted a progression towards peace. Gitai keeps the tone at a steady simmer and the film manages to be an unsettling reflection of a country perilously divided of a relatively recent tragedy which pitched the turmoil into a tunnel where a light at the end has yet to be conceived.
On October 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated. Gitai focuses specifically on...
- 1/30/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Hitchcock/Truffaut director Kent Jones Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
There is only one place where you can see and hear Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader discuss Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut with a narration by Bob Balaban, who played Truffaut's translator in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
Robert Cummings with Alfred Hitchcock and Ray Milland (Dial M For Murder)
It all began for Kent Jones with Dial M For Murder, Fahrenheit 451 and Richard Schickel's Men Who Made The Movies that included William Wellman, Howard Hawks, Vincente Minnelli - but no John Ford. For Hitchcock/Truffaut, Kent decided to forego a direct linking of films and opted for an energy driven structure. Eric Gautier shot an early interview in the old Cahiers du Cinéma offices.
Traveling downtown after an afternoon...
There is only one place where you can see and hear Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader discuss Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut with a narration by Bob Balaban, who played Truffaut's translator in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
Robert Cummings with Alfred Hitchcock and Ray Milland (Dial M For Murder)
It all began for Kent Jones with Dial M For Murder, Fahrenheit 451 and Richard Schickel's Men Who Made The Movies that included William Wellman, Howard Hawks, Vincente Minnelli - but no John Ford. For Hitchcock/Truffaut, Kent decided to forego a direct linking of films and opted for an energy driven structure. Eric Gautier shot an early interview in the old Cahiers du Cinéma offices.
Traveling downtown after an afternoon...
- 12/4/2015
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Amos Gitai’s drama about the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
Paris-based Indie Sales has acquired international sales rights to Rabin: The Last Day, a drama about the events leading up to the 1995 murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Directed by Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai, the film will receive its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival (Sept 2-12).
Gitai has previously been nominated five times for Venice’s Golden Lion with Berlin-Yerushalaim (1989), Eden (2001), Alila (2003), Promised Land (2004) and Ana Arabia (2013).
Gitai, who co-wrote Rabin with regular collaborator Marie-José Sanselme, shot the film in February at various sites in Israel, from Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square to the settlement of Kedumim in the West Bank
At the Jerusalem Film Festival last month, where the director gave a masterclass, Gitai told ScreenDaily: “Israeli society is still feeling the shockwaves of [Rabin’s] killing, even if it’s...
Paris-based Indie Sales has acquired international sales rights to Rabin: The Last Day, a drama about the events leading up to the 1995 murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Directed by Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai, the film will receive its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival (Sept 2-12).
Gitai has previously been nominated five times for Venice’s Golden Lion with Berlin-Yerushalaim (1989), Eden (2001), Alila (2003), Promised Land (2004) and Ana Arabia (2013).
Gitai, who co-wrote Rabin with regular collaborator Marie-José Sanselme, shot the film in February at various sites in Israel, from Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square to the settlement of Kedumim in the West Bank
At the Jerusalem Film Festival last month, where the director gave a masterclass, Gitai told ScreenDaily: “Israeli society is still feeling the shockwaves of [Rabin’s] killing, even if it’s...
- 8/10/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Amos Gitai is hoping to screen Rabin: The Last Day at festivals in autumn.
Ahead of his Monday masterclass here at Jerusalem Film Festival (9-19 July), Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai sat down with Screen to discuss his upcoming Yitzhak Rabin feature, now titled Rabin: The Last Day.
Currently putting the final touches to the film, which he shot in February in Tel Aviv, Gitai is waiting to hear from one of the major autumn festivals about a programming berth.
“We will know by the end of the month,” he said. “We’ve been showing the film without the final mix and the reactions have been very strong. I’m really discovering how much he meant to so many people in many different countries.”
“Israeli society is still feeling the shockwaves of his killing even if it’s already 20 years ago,” he added. “It’s an open wound and looking at the current situation in the Middle East, there...
Ahead of his Monday masterclass here at Jerusalem Film Festival (9-19 July), Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai sat down with Screen to discuss his upcoming Yitzhak Rabin feature, now titled Rabin: The Last Day.
Currently putting the final touches to the film, which he shot in February in Tel Aviv, Gitai is waiting to hear from one of the major autumn festivals about a programming berth.
“We will know by the end of the month,” he said. “We’ve been showing the film without the final mix and the reactions have been very strong. I’m really discovering how much he meant to so many people in many different countries.”
“Israeli society is still feeling the shockwaves of his killing even if it’s already 20 years ago,” he added. “It’s an open wound and looking at the current situation in the Middle East, there...
- 7/14/2015
- by matt.mueller@screendaily.com (Matt Mueller)
- ScreenDaily
If you were to show me "Aloha" with no credits on the film, my reaction would remain just as complicated as it is now, but I'd say, "There are a few moments here that are promising, and I feel like this filmmaker might put it together at some point. Not this film, probably not the next one, but at some point." It is, frankly, astonishing to me that "Aloha" is the eighth film in someone's directing career, not the first. When they released the trailer for "Aloha," I was flabbergasted by it. It looked like a beat-for-beat remake of "Elizabethtown," which seemed like very odd choice considering the response to that film. Now that I've seen it, the crazy part is that they had to go out of their way to cut the trailer like that, since "Aloha" is not structured the same way as "Elizabethtown." Basically, Sony decided that...
- 5/28/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
The first indication that Aloha is a project by filmmaker and music aficionado Cameron Crowe comes during the opening logos, when we hear a record player’s needle drop. The next sign is boastful voice-over from the main character, played by Bradley Cooper, speaking of his expertise as a defense contractor as we glimpse the earth from above. Nearly 20 years ago, in Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise’s title character also spoke of his career prowess as the camera fixated on our glimmering planet.
Regardless, the most obvious give-away of the film’s writer/director comes from the rapport of the two main characters. One is Brian Gilcrest (Cooper), a man who used to be a dreamer but has turned into a bottom line cynic. The other is a headstrong idealist, Private Allison Ng (pronounced “Ing,” played by Emma Stone), whose personal goal is to bring some sun into Brian’s life,...
Regardless, the most obvious give-away of the film’s writer/director comes from the rapport of the two main characters. One is Brian Gilcrest (Cooper), a man who used to be a dreamer but has turned into a bottom line cynic. The other is a headstrong idealist, Private Allison Ng (pronounced “Ing,” played by Emma Stone), whose personal goal is to bring some sun into Brian’s life,...
- 5/28/2015
- by Jordan Adler
- We Got This Covered
Watching a film by Olivier Assayas is a little like wandering into the bedroom of a teenager, taking in the aesthetic décor that clings to his or her walls and bookshelves—posters, pop records, hastily cut-out collages of idols, and literature—and being left to draw a logical conclusion based on these ephemeral scraps. This idea of collage, assembling or reinventing an identity, has always been a concept inherent to punk and youth culture: British punk historian Jon Savage coined the term “living collage” to describe European teenagers in the 1970s who tore apart thrifted vintage clothing at the seams to fuse and repurpose them with safety pins. Assayas’ work is essentially the filmic equivalent of that same idea: he populates his frames with torrents of ideas and surfaces and lets loose cinematographers Yorick Le Saux and Eric Gautier to pan wildly, struggling to encapsulate everything into their widescreen, handheld compositions.
- 5/8/2015
- by Mark Lukenbill
- MUBI
With apologies to Three Six Mafia, it's hard out here for a princess. In the past year, first-world problem films – the plush brand of non-issue cinema exemplified by last year's Cannes entry “A Castle in Italy,” in which linen-clad lunchers fretted prettily about what to do with their priceless original Brueghels – have been threatened by the Princess Problem Picture, a currently thriving subgenre that sets out to measure the true weight of a tiara. Whether the wearer is a closeted Scandi ice maiden who just wants, Garbo-style, to be left alone (“Frozen”) or a hounded British divorcee who just wants, Lauper-style, to have fun (“Diana”), female royalty hasn't seemed such a drag since the age of Henry VIII. Enter Olivier Dahan's “Grace of Monaco,” a biopic that announces its intention to further remove the scales from our eyes with an opening quote from its subject: “The idea of my life as a fairytale,...
- 5/14/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
Amir here, to welcome you back to Team Top Ten, our monthly poll by all of the website’s contributors. For our first episode in 2014, we are looking at The Greatest Working Cinematographers in the (international) film industry. As long time readers of The Film Experience are surely aware, the visual language of cinema is something Nathaniel and the rest of us are very fond of discussing. Films and filmmakers that have a dash of style and understand cinema as a visual medium always get bonus points around these parts. We celebrate great works in cinematography on a weekly basis in Hit Me With Your Best Shot, but it was time to give the people behind the camera their due.
More than 50 cinematographers from all across the world received votes. If the final, somewhat American-centric, list doesn’t quite reflect that, chalk it up to the natural process of consensus voting.
More than 50 cinematographers from all across the world received votes. If the final, somewhat American-centric, list doesn’t quite reflect that, chalk it up to the natural process of consensus voting.
- 4/5/2014
- by Amir S.
- FilmExperience
As many of you already know, I adore Cameron Crowe. I connect with his films on every level. We Bought A Zoo didn't quite resonate as much with me though I think it deserves a second watch. I felt the same way about Elizabethtown until I gave it another viewing. The directors next currently known as "Untitled Hawaii Project" began production on September 26th with Eric Gautier (Into The Wild) serving as cinematographer. The story written by Crowe centers on "A celebrated...
- 11/7/2013
- by Niki Stephens
- JoBlo.com
Patrice Chéreau dead at 68: French director best known for ‘Queen Margot,’ gay-related dramas (photo: Patrice Chéreau; Isabelle Adjani in ‘Queen Margot’) Screenwriter, sometime actor, and stage, opera, and film director Patrice Chéreau, whose clinically cool — some might say sterile — films were arthouse favorites in some quarters, has died of lung cancer in Paris. Chéreau was 68. Born on November 2, 1944, in Lézigné, in France’s Maine-et-Loire department, and raised in Paris, Patrice Chéreau began directing plays in his late teens. In the mid-’60s, he became the director of a theater in Sartrouville, northwest of Paris, where he staged plays with a strong left-wing bent. Later on he moved to Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, and in the ’80s became the director of the Théâtre des Amandiers in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. His 1976 staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth was considered revolutionary. Patrice Chéreau...
- 10/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its 276-member-strong class of 2013.
The list, published by The Hollywood Reporter, includes actors, cinematographers, designers, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, makeup artists and hairstylists, "members-at-large," musicians, producers, PR folks, short filmmakers and animators, sound technicians, visual effects artists, and writers.
Jason Bateman, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Emily Mortimer, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, and Michael Peña are among the roster of actors, while "The Heat" and "Bridesmaids" helmer Paul Feig made the directors' cut.
"We did not change our criteria at all," says Academy president Hawk Koch of this year's larger-than-usual class. "Yes, this year there is a tremendous amount of women, a tremendous amount of people of color, people from all walks of life. This year, we asked the branches to look at everybody who wasn't in the Academy but who deserved to be.
The list, published by The Hollywood Reporter, includes actors, cinematographers, designers, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, makeup artists and hairstylists, "members-at-large," musicians, producers, PR folks, short filmmakers and animators, sound technicians, visual effects artists, and writers.
Jason Bateman, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Emily Mortimer, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, and Michael Peña are among the roster of actors, while "The Heat" and "Bridesmaids" helmer Paul Feig made the directors' cut.
"We did not change our criteria at all," says Academy president Hawk Koch of this year's larger-than-usual class. "Yes, this year there is a tremendous amount of women, a tremendous amount of people of color, people from all walks of life. This year, we asked the branches to look at everybody who wasn't in the Academy but who deserved to be.
- 7/4/2013
- by Laura Larson
- Moviefone
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today the 276 members of the entertainment industry invited to join organization. The list includes actors, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, producers and more. Of those listed below, those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy's membership in 2013. "These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today," said Academy President Hawk Koch in a press release. "Their talent and creativity have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, and I am proud to welcome each of them to the Academy." Koch also told Variety, "In the past eight or nine years, each branch could only bring in X amount of members. There were people each branch would have liked to get in but couldn't. We asked them to be more inclusive of the best of the best, and each branch was excited, because they got...
- 6/28/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.