Ever since Thoreau published “Walden” in 1854, the eponymous pond has taken on a life far more metaphysical than geographic, appropriated by writers wanting to give a name to their own special place where life at some point in the past had the potential for time-stopping splendid isolation. In Czech director Bojena Horackova’s “Walden,” a lake in Lithuania named by the characters after Thoreau’s book is but one of many recognizable elements suffusing this low-key memory film, composed like a palimpsest where all influences are detectable.
Episodically constructed with conscious tips of the hat to Jonas Mekas, Eric Rohmer, Ingmar Bergman and Sharunas Bartas, the film has a quiet pull, yet the lack of chemistry between characters plus the piecemeal storytelling leave the viewer in customary admiration of co-dp Agnès Godard’s masterful framing without connecting to their emotions. , both as a teenager in early 1989 Lithuania, just before the collapse of communism,...
Episodically constructed with conscious tips of the hat to Jonas Mekas, Eric Rohmer, Ingmar Bergman and Sharunas Bartas, the film has a quiet pull, yet the lack of chemistry between characters plus the piecemeal storytelling leave the viewer in customary admiration of co-dp Agnès Godard’s masterful framing without connecting to their emotions. , both as a teenager in early 1989 Lithuania, just before the collapse of communism,...
- 8/12/2020
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
Set in Lithuania at the tail end of Communist rule, Bojena Horackova’s “Walden” offers a bittersweet look at a group of youths on two sides of a generational change.
Selected as a part of Cannes’ Acid sidebar and making its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, the film follows its withdrawn protagonist Jana across two timelines – both as a 17-year-old who falls in with a roguish crowd as she prepares to go west on a student visa, and then as middle-aged woman who has returned to her native city after spending 30 years in France.
Both narrative strands move forward with the limpid focus of a short story, and both culminate at a secluded lakefront retreat Jana’s rakish teenage boyfriend calls Walden.
“It’s classic structure, showing one character at two different points,” Horackova tells Variety. “But I liked that both took place around the lake… I was...
Selected as a part of Cannes’ Acid sidebar and making its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, the film follows its withdrawn protagonist Jana across two timelines – both as a 17-year-old who falls in with a roguish crowd as she prepares to go west on a student visa, and then as middle-aged woman who has returned to her native city after spending 30 years in France.
Both narrative strands move forward with the limpid focus of a short story, and both culminate at a secluded lakefront retreat Jana’s rakish teenage boyfriend calls Walden.
“It’s classic structure, showing one character at two different points,” Horackova tells Variety. “But I liked that both took place around the lake… I was...
- 8/10/2020
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Second prize went to Noura’s Dream, while Giuseppe Battiston and Stefano Fresi were crowned Best Actors, 143 Sahara Street Best International Doc and Fuori tutto Best Italian Doc. A White, White Day, the second work by the Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason, has been named Best Film of the 37th Turin Film Festival, which drew to a close on Saturday 30 November. The award was handed over by a jury presided over by Cristina Comencini (Italy) and composed of Fabienne Babe (France), Bruce McDonald (Canada), Eran Riklis (Israel) and Teona Strugar Mitevska (Macedonia). The next most important accolade, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation Award, went to Noura’s Dream by Hinde Boujemaa, while Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina were named Best Actresses (for Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole), and Giuseppe Battiston and Stefano Fresi Best Actors (for Antonio Padovan’s Il grande passo). Within the international documentary section, a jury comprising Sara...
Exclusive: French company also unveils first deals on Jean-Claude Brisseau’s erotic 3D drama Tempting Devils.
Paris-based genre specialist WTFilms has taken on international sales of mainstream, same-sex romantic comedy Kiss Me! (Embrasse Moi!) in which the protagonist falls for a woman with 76 ex-girlfriends and a crazy family.
The company will kick-off sales on the title, which is in post-production, at the Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema this week.
French stand-up comedian Océanerosemarie – best known for her one woman show La Lesbienne Invisible – makes her directorial and big screen debut in the film.
She plays a happy-go-lucky osteopath who falls for the beautiful Cécile, an artist who has taken a personal vow of celibacy after a series of failed relationships.
Alice Pol plays Cécile. The actress’s other recent credits include Dany Boon’s latest comedy Raid Special Unit (Raid Dingue) in which she co-stars as a hopeless special police force recruit. That film is...
Paris-based genre specialist WTFilms has taken on international sales of mainstream, same-sex romantic comedy Kiss Me! (Embrasse Moi!) in which the protagonist falls for a woman with 76 ex-girlfriends and a crazy family.
The company will kick-off sales on the title, which is in post-production, at the Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema this week.
French stand-up comedian Océanerosemarie – best known for her one woman show La Lesbienne Invisible – makes her directorial and big screen debut in the film.
She plays a happy-go-lucky osteopath who falls for the beautiful Cécile, an artist who has taken a personal vow of celibacy after a series of failed relationships.
Alice Pol plays Cécile. The actress’s other recent credits include Dany Boon’s latest comedy Raid Special Unit (Raid Dingue) in which she co-stars as a hopeless special police force recruit. That film is...
- 1/11/2017
- ScreenDaily
The 1980s were a quiet period for British auteur Ken Loach, at least as far as film features were concerned. Though he directed six documentaries during the decade (nearly all of them for television), he’d only complete three narratives, none of which were as celebrated as his early works or the prolific period which would follow through the 1990s and 2000s. As the insert essay on this re-release from Julie Kirgo points out, this was a direct result of Thatcher’s government shutting down avenues for Loach to maintain funding for his features. Of the items he managed to get off the ground, his first and only foray (to date) into European filmmaking is 1986’s Fatherland (aka Singing the Blues in Red), a film about an East German musician defecting to the West to escape the political repression of his music. Written by Trevor Griffiths (best known for writing Warren Beatty’s Reds,...
- 12/15/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The Audience Award went to Destin Daniel Cretton’s Us festival hit Short Term 12; The Athens International Film Festival wrapped with Blue Is The Warmest Colour.
Yann Gonzalez’s debut feature You and the Night was named Best Film at the 19th Athens International Film Festival (Aiff) which ran September 19-29.
A Modern day retelling of Sade’s Philosophy In The Bedroom, the film, written by Gonzalez, stars Alain-Fabien Delon alongside Eric Cantona, Kate Moran, Fabienne Babe and Niels Schneider.
It was chosen by a jury made up of film school students, aged 18-25.
The Best Director Award went to second timer American Sam Fleischner for Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, a coming of age story about a 13 years-old autistic boy, son of an illegal Mexican immigrant mother in New York.
French debutant Antonin Peretjako picked up the Best Screenplay award for The Rendez-vous of Deja-Vu, about the adventures of a group of young Parisians...
Yann Gonzalez’s debut feature You and the Night was named Best Film at the 19th Athens International Film Festival (Aiff) which ran September 19-29.
A Modern day retelling of Sade’s Philosophy In The Bedroom, the film, written by Gonzalez, stars Alain-Fabien Delon alongside Eric Cantona, Kate Moran, Fabienne Babe and Niels Schneider.
It was chosen by a jury made up of film school students, aged 18-25.
The Best Director Award went to second timer American Sam Fleischner for Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, a coming of age story about a 13 years-old autistic boy, son of an illegal Mexican immigrant mother in New York.
French debutant Antonin Peretjako picked up the Best Screenplay award for The Rendez-vous of Deja-Vu, about the adventures of a group of young Parisians...
- 10/1/2013
- by alexisgrivas@yahoo.com (Alexis Grivas)
- ScreenDaily
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