A few years after the beginning of what has been labeled the "New Romanian Cinema" the aesthetic and moral agenda of filmmakers working under this banner threatened to become a mere cliché. Too often corruption was filmed with static long shots, too many colors vanished from the images and too much emphasis was placed on the same actors acting in similar roles. The director Radu Jude, who worked as an assistant for Cristi Puiu on the movement's seminal The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), made some strong short films like Shadow of a Cloud (2013), none of which insinuated that he would be the one taking the (not only social) realism of Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristian Mungiu and friends to a new level. His latest documentary The Dead Nation shows a filmmaker who has discovered a special way of looking at and behind images. That alone does not qualify for a different approach in Romanian cinema,...
- 7/13/2017
- MUBI
Big World Pictures
Founded in 2013 and run almost single-handedly by Jonathan Howell, Big World Pictures is a non-profit distribution outfit dedicated to bringing the best in world cinema to film enthusiasts across the United States.
“As an expansion of the mission of our critically-acclaimed short film distribution wing, The World According to Shorts, Big World Pictures is dedicated to bringing the best in world cinema to film enthusiasts across the United States. We acquire only three to four feature films annually for theatrical release, in addition to several short films (to be released through The World According to Shorts), and ten to twelve feature films annually for video/VOD/TV release.”
Opening at Laemmle’s Royal in L.A. day and date with New York’s Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on June 23, Luc Bondy’s modern-day adaptation of the classic Marivaux play, “False Confessions”, starring Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel and Bulle Ogier...
Founded in 2013 and run almost single-handedly by Jonathan Howell, Big World Pictures is a non-profit distribution outfit dedicated to bringing the best in world cinema to film enthusiasts across the United States.
“As an expansion of the mission of our critically-acclaimed short film distribution wing, The World According to Shorts, Big World Pictures is dedicated to bringing the best in world cinema to film enthusiasts across the United States. We acquire only three to four feature films annually for theatrical release, in addition to several short films (to be released through The World According to Shorts), and ten to twelve feature films annually for video/VOD/TV release.”
Opening at Laemmle’s Royal in L.A. day and date with New York’s Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on June 23, Luc Bondy’s modern-day adaptation of the classic Marivaux play, “False Confessions”, starring Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel and Bulle Ogier...
- 6/6/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
April 21 to 23 will see an unprecedented collaboration between Acropolis Cinema, the Locarno Festival, and the Swiss Consulate General of Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent cinema. Curated by Acropolis founder Jordan Cronk and co-artistic director Robert Koehler, the festival’s main program is comprised of a hand-selected group of films from the 69th Locarno Festival’s Competition, Signs of Life, and Filmmakers of the Present programs, with ten features, all Los Angeles premieres, representing no less than nine different countries.Locarno in Los Angeles
Co-organized with the Swiss Consulate General in Los Angeles, the festival will also host two daytime panel discussions featuring a variety of local critics, programmers, and representatives from Acropolis and the Locarno Festival. Along with three evening receptions featuring a selection of Ticino wine and beer, the first Locarno in Los Angeles promises to bring a tantalizing taste of one of the world’s best film...
Co-organized with the Swiss Consulate General in Los Angeles, the festival will also host two daytime panel discussions featuring a variety of local critics, programmers, and representatives from Acropolis and the Locarno Festival. Along with three evening receptions featuring a selection of Ticino wine and beer, the first Locarno in Los Angeles promises to bring a tantalizing taste of one of the world’s best film...
- 4/20/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.
– Fox Searchlight has bought the rights to “The Spy With No Name,” an ebook written by Jeff Maysh and published by Amazon Kindle Single, Deadline reports. Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert of Emjag Productions will produce alongside “Argo” executive producer David Klawans.
Read More: Film Acquisition Rundown: Grasshopper Film Gets ‘Escapes,’ Amazon and IFC Films Date ‘City of Ghosts’ and More
The true story centers on Erwin van Haarlem, a Cold War secret agent who stole the identity of a Dutch man whose mother had given him up for adoption. The Communist spy pretended to be Johanna van Haarlem’s long lost son for 11 years before being caught.
– FilmRise has acquired the U.S. rights to Michael Almereyda’s “Marjorie Prime,...
– Fox Searchlight has bought the rights to “The Spy With No Name,” an ebook written by Jeff Maysh and published by Amazon Kindle Single, Deadline reports. Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert of Emjag Productions will produce alongside “Argo” executive producer David Klawans.
Read More: Film Acquisition Rundown: Grasshopper Film Gets ‘Escapes,’ Amazon and IFC Films Date ‘City of Ghosts’ and More
The true story centers on Erwin van Haarlem, a Cold War secret agent who stole the identity of a Dutch man whose mother had given him up for adoption. The Communist spy pretended to be Johanna van Haarlem’s long lost son for 11 years before being caught.
– FilmRise has acquired the U.S. rights to Michael Almereyda’s “Marjorie Prime,...
- 3/31/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Berlin’s Komplizen Film won prizes for Radu Jude’s Scarred Hearts and Emin Alper’s forthcoming Sisters - Kiz Kardesler.
Komplizen Film, the producer of Maren Ade’s tragicomedy Toni Erdmann, scored a double success during last week’s Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 29 - Oct 8), which had opened with Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut American Pastoral.
The Berlin/Munich production company was awarded the Hamburg Producers’ Award for European Cinema Co-Productions for Radu Jude’s adaptation of Max Blecher’s autobiographical novel, Scarred Hearts, which had premiered in Locarno in August where it won the Special Jury Prize.
Komplizen Film had served as the German co-producer for Ada Solomon’s Hi Film Productions on the production of Scarred Hearts, after the Romanian producer served as a production partner on Ade’s Toni Erdmann.
In addition, producers Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski were awarded development support with their Turkish colleague Nadir Öperli of Liman Film for Emin Alper’s next...
Komplizen Film, the producer of Maren Ade’s tragicomedy Toni Erdmann, scored a double success during last week’s Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 29 - Oct 8), which had opened with Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut American Pastoral.
The Berlin/Munich production company was awarded the Hamburg Producers’ Award for European Cinema Co-Productions for Radu Jude’s adaptation of Max Blecher’s autobiographical novel, Scarred Hearts, which had premiered in Locarno in August where it won the Special Jury Prize.
Komplizen Film had served as the German co-producer for Ada Solomon’s Hi Film Productions on the production of Scarred Hearts, after the Romanian producer served as a production partner on Ade’s Toni Erdmann.
In addition, producers Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski were awarded development support with their Turkish colleague Nadir Öperli of Liman Film for Emin Alper’s next...
- 10/10/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Following a premiere at Locarno, where we quite liked it, a trailer has arrived for Romanian director Radu Jude‘s latest drama Scarred Hearts. Described as a “free adaptation of the literary works of M. Blecher,” and clocking in just shy of two and a half hours, the film looks to be an odyssey of sorts while working on a smaller scale. It concerns Emmanuel (Lucian Teodor Rus), whose body is giving out beneath him in a sanatorium, even while his mind refuses to stop loving and living.
Lensed by Marius Panduru in the little-seen aspect ratio of 1.37:1, the choice, coupled with some wonderful compositions, gives the film a polaroid look — it truly looks like something pulled from the history books. Underneath these frames seems to lie a tale laced with humor, romance, and inevitable sadness. As a woman shouts dramatically from a beach to Emmanuel, who lies in...
Lensed by Marius Panduru in the little-seen aspect ratio of 1.37:1, the choice, coupled with some wonderful compositions, gives the film a polaroid look — it truly looks like something pulled from the history books. Underneath these frames seems to lie a tale laced with humor, romance, and inevitable sadness. As a woman shouts dramatically from a beach to Emmanuel, who lies in...
- 9/26/2016
- by Mike Mazzanti
- The Film Stage
The OrnithologistIt’s one thing to watch a film festival unfold and take the films as they come when they come, on their own individual merits. It’s another to look back at them as part of a bigger picture, tracing connections made in invisible ink that may not be apparent at the time. That’s one way to look at the competitive selection of Locarno in 2016. As usual, yes, Locarno did take risks very few other A-list festivals would, and it still gets away with stuff other events can’t. (Let’s pause here to remember that Filipino auteur du jour Lav Diaz only went on to the main Berlin line-up after winning the Golden Leopard two years ago.) If getting away with it means tripping over itself occasionally (and in my short time of attending Locarno there have been stumbles, believe me), I’m absolutely fine with it.
- 8/22/2016
- MUBI
The 69th annual Locarno Film Festival finally concluded after eleven days and screenings of 279 films, and awarded its Palmarès. The Golden Leopard went to “Godless,” a first feature from Bulgaria’s Ralitza Petrova. The film portrait of the criminal underbelly of Bulgaria also took home Best Actress for Irena Ivanova.
The fest jury awarded João Pedro Rodrigues Best Director for “O Ornitólogo.” Romanian director Radu Jude won the Special Jury Prize for his film “Inimi Cicatrizate” (Scarred Hearts), which was inspired by the 1937 Max Blecher novel.
Read More: João Pedro Rodrigues’ ‘The Ornithologist’ Will Blow Your Mind — Locarno Review
The public favorite, Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake,” about a UK retiree struggling to obtain medical assistance from the state, won the Audience Award; at Cannes, Indiewire’s Eric Kohn dubbed the film “Loach’s best movie in years.”
Read More: Cannes Review: Why ‘I, Daniel Blake’ is Ken Loach...
The fest jury awarded João Pedro Rodrigues Best Director for “O Ornitólogo.” Romanian director Radu Jude won the Special Jury Prize for his film “Inimi Cicatrizate” (Scarred Hearts), which was inspired by the 1937 Max Blecher novel.
Read More: João Pedro Rodrigues’ ‘The Ornithologist’ Will Blow Your Mind — Locarno Review
The public favorite, Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake,” about a UK retiree struggling to obtain medical assistance from the state, won the Audience Award; at Cannes, Indiewire’s Eric Kohn dubbed the film “Loach’s best movie in years.”
Read More: Cannes Review: Why ‘I, Daniel Blake’ is Ken Loach...
- 8/13/2016
- by Liz Calvario
- Indiewire
Bulgarian drama won the Golden Leopard as well as Best Actress for star Irena Ivanova.
Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova’s debut feature Godless has won the top prize, the Golden Leopard, at the 69th Locarno Film Festival.
The drama also took the Best Actress award for Irena Ivanova’s performance as a nurse looking after elderly patients with dementia in a remote Bulgarian town.
In addition, the production by Klas Film’s Rossitsa Valkanova with Denmark’s Snowglobe and France’s Alcatraz Films and Film Factory, received the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,500 (CHF20,000).
The screenplay for Godless - which is being handled internationally by Greek-based Heretic Outreach - had been supported by Torino FilmLab’s FrameWork, Sarajevo’s CineLink and the Women in Film Finishing Fund in Los Angeles.
“This prize was unusual among juries because it was a unanimous decision between all the members of our team,” the International...
Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova’s debut feature Godless has won the top prize, the Golden Leopard, at the 69th Locarno Film Festival.
The drama also took the Best Actress award for Irena Ivanova’s performance as a nurse looking after elderly patients with dementia in a remote Bulgarian town.
In addition, the production by Klas Film’s Rossitsa Valkanova with Denmark’s Snowglobe and France’s Alcatraz Films and Film Factory, received the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,500 (CHF20,000).
The screenplay for Godless - which is being handled internationally by Greek-based Heretic Outreach - had been supported by Torino FilmLab’s FrameWork, Sarajevo’s CineLink and the Women in Film Finishing Fund in Los Angeles.
“This prize was unusual among juries because it was a unanimous decision between all the members of our team,” the International...
- 8/13/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Beginning in 1937 — the opening credits take us through a series of period photos and alert us to expect something with a potentially greater scope than simply the biopic of one man — Scarred Hearts is still inspired by the life of one figure: writer and intellectual Max Blecher, in the case of this film reconfigured as Emanuel (Lucius Rus), suffering from bone tuberculosis and put in a hospital on the edge of the Black Sea. A 20-year-old man with his life ahead of him, there’s the belief within him that this is all to pass, though, as history will attest, that’s unfortunately not true.
Like another two-and-a-half-hour Romanian dry comedy about the medical process, Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Scarred Hearts plays up the control doctors hold over us in a critical state for maximum absurdity, of course the joke of antiquated health care emphasized in director Radu Jude’s case.
Like another two-and-a-half-hour Romanian dry comedy about the medical process, Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Scarred Hearts plays up the control doctors hold over us in a critical state for maximum absurdity, of course the joke of antiquated health care emphasized in director Radu Jude’s case.
- 8/10/2016
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Still Moving picks up ‘The Black Frost’ and ‘In The Last Days Of City’.
French sales and co-production company Still Moving has acquired world sales rights to Maximiliano Schonfeld’s The Black Frost [pictured] and Tamer El Said’s In The Last Days Of The City ahead of their premieres at the Berlinale (Feb 11-21).
The two titles are the first world sales acquisitions for the Paris-based company launched by industry veterans Pierre Menahem and Juliette Lepoutre at the last Berlinale with an initial focus on international co-productions
“We spent the first year focussing on co-productions and now we’re expanding into world sales which was always the way we planned it,” said Menahem.
The Black Frost, set to premiere in Panorama, is Argentine film-maker Schonfeld’s second film after his 2012 feature debut Germania in which a family is forced to leave their poultry farm after its birds are infected with a deadly plague-like disease.
His new film...
French sales and co-production company Still Moving has acquired world sales rights to Maximiliano Schonfeld’s The Black Frost [pictured] and Tamer El Said’s In The Last Days Of The City ahead of their premieres at the Berlinale (Feb 11-21).
The two titles are the first world sales acquisitions for the Paris-based company launched by industry veterans Pierre Menahem and Juliette Lepoutre at the last Berlinale with an initial focus on international co-productions
“We spent the first year focussing on co-productions and now we’re expanding into world sales which was always the way we planned it,” said Menahem.
The Black Frost, set to premiere in Panorama, is Argentine film-maker Schonfeld’s second film after his 2012 feature debut Germania in which a family is forced to leave their poultry farm after its birds are infected with a deadly plague-like disease.
His new film...
- 2/4/2016
- ScreenDaily
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.