Belgian-Congolese rapper and film director Baloji is back on the Croisette for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
The director of 2023 Un Certain Regard entry Omen this year is a member of the Caméra d’Or, or Golden Camera, jury.
Before heading to Cannes, he shared with THR some tips and insights into his experience at the festival.
What makes Cannes unique?
You can have specialists in South Korean art house movies, next to people signing film deals, right beside TikTok influencers reporting on red carpet stars and the next bling bling. Bringing all these worlds together is what makes Cannes so special.
Favorite “only in Cannes” moment?
My favorite moment was, of course, screening Omen at the Debussy Theatre. But the strangest “only in Cannes” moment was doing the red carpet. Because we didn’t have a red carpet for our film, the crew and I got to walk the red...
The director of 2023 Un Certain Regard entry Omen this year is a member of the Caméra d’Or, or Golden Camera, jury.
Before heading to Cannes, he shared with THR some tips and insights into his experience at the festival.
What makes Cannes unique?
You can have specialists in South Korean art house movies, next to people signing film deals, right beside TikTok influencers reporting on red carpet stars and the next bling bling. Bringing all these worlds together is what makes Cannes so special.
Favorite “only in Cannes” moment?
My favorite moment was, of course, screening Omen at the Debussy Theatre. But the strangest “only in Cannes” moment was doing the red carpet. Because we didn’t have a red carpet for our film, the crew and I got to walk the red...
- 5/16/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ivan Passer’s first American film and his first in the English language is a core life-with-a-junkie tale in a cold Manhattan winter. George Segal is the ‘habituated, not addicted’ (he says) user whose married life has already been destroyed. Can he escape with the help of his new girlfriend? Hector Elizondo’s pimp/pusher has no intention of letting that happen. What’s weird is Passer’s frequently light tone — Segal’s criminal antics verge on the absurd. It’s a great film to see Karen Black, a young Robert De Niro and even Paula Prentiss in action, and yet another snapshot of Times Square in its most degraded decade.
Born to Win
Blu-ray
Fun City Editions
1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 89 min. / Scraping Bottom / Street Date May 31, 2022 / Available from Vinegar Syndrome / 27.99, from Amazon / 34.99
Starring: George Segal, Karen Black, Paula Prentiss, Hector Elizondo, Jay Fletcher, Robert De Niro, Ed Madsen, Marcia Jean Kurtz,...
Born to Win
Blu-ray
Fun City Editions
1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 89 min. / Scraping Bottom / Street Date May 31, 2022 / Available from Vinegar Syndrome / 27.99, from Amazon / 34.99
Starring: George Segal, Karen Black, Paula Prentiss, Hector Elizondo, Jay Fletcher, Robert De Niro, Ed Madsen, Marcia Jean Kurtz,...
- 4/30/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“I wanted to tell this story because it asks so many questions on so many levels,” admits acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland about why she wanted to direct her latest film, the Czech/Polish/Irish/Slovak co-production “Charlatan.” “It’s an intimate story with an epic scope,” she says. Watch our exclusive video interview with Holland above.
“Charlatan” is based on the true story of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek, who dedicated his life to treat the sick using medicinal plants. Throughout the war and turmoil of the 20th century he has to choose between his calling and his conscience. The film stars acclaimed Czech actor Ivan Trojan in a stunning performance as Mikolášek, alongside his real-life son Josef Trojan as the younger Mikolášek. The film co-stars Czech matinee idol Juraj Loj as the healer’s devoted assistant František Palko.
See 2021 Oscars shortlists in 9 categories: International Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Original Song,...
“Charlatan” is based on the true story of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek, who dedicated his life to treat the sick using medicinal plants. Throughout the war and turmoil of the 20th century he has to choose between his calling and his conscience. The film stars acclaimed Czech actor Ivan Trojan in a stunning performance as Mikolášek, alongside his real-life son Josef Trojan as the younger Mikolášek. The film co-stars Czech matinee idol Juraj Loj as the healer’s devoted assistant František Palko.
See 2021 Oscars shortlists in 9 categories: International Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Original Song,...
- 3/2/2021
- by Rob Licuria
- Gold Derby
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Bungalow (Ulrich Köhler)
Ulrich Köhler remains underseen—even by the standards of Berlin School brethren Christian Petzold and Maren Ade—and a 4K restoration of his 2002 debut Bungalow comes at the right time: its story of isolation, frayed connections, and romantic infatuation foreground an only idyllic-seeming summer getaway. 18 years on, not a shred of it feels dated or resolved, down to a conclusion that puts one in mind of ’70s American classics.
Where to Stream: Grasshopper Film
Czechoslovak New Wave
A period of creative fervor and political deconstruction like few others in cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave is now getting a spotlight on The Criterion Channel. Selections includes Black Peter (Miloš Forman,...
Bungalow (Ulrich Köhler)
Ulrich Köhler remains underseen—even by the standards of Berlin School brethren Christian Petzold and Maren Ade—and a 4K restoration of his 2002 debut Bungalow comes at the right time: its story of isolation, frayed connections, and romantic infatuation foreground an only idyllic-seeming summer getaway. 18 years on, not a shred of it feels dated or resolved, down to a conclusion that puts one in mind of ’70s American classics.
Where to Stream: Grasshopper Film
Czechoslovak New Wave
A period of creative fervor and political deconstruction like few others in cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave is now getting a spotlight on The Criterion Channel. Selections includes Black Peter (Miloš Forman,...
- 7/3/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Milos Forman would’ve celebrated his 88th birthday on February 18, 2020. The late director, who passed away in 2018, only made a dozen movies in his career, yet several of those are classics. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 12 of Forman’s films, ranked worst to best.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, Forman first came to international attention with “Loves of a Blonde” (1965) and “The Firemen’s Ball” (1967), both of which earned Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film. In those early works, the director showed an affinity for antiauthoritarianism and oddball outsiders that would animate his best work.
He made his American debut with “Taking Off” (1971), and just four years later he was collecting his first Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975). The comedic drama about a mental patient (Jack Nicholson) rebelling against a tyrannical nurse (Louise Fletcher) became one of only three films...
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, Forman first came to international attention with “Loves of a Blonde” (1965) and “The Firemen’s Ball” (1967), both of which earned Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film. In those early works, the director showed an affinity for antiauthoritarianism and oddball outsiders that would animate his best work.
He made his American debut with “Taking Off” (1971), and just four years later he was collecting his first Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975). The comedic drama about a mental patient (Jack Nicholson) rebelling against a tyrannical nurse (Louise Fletcher) became one of only three films...
- 2/3/2020
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Director who was part of the ‘Czech film miracle’ in the 1960s but made his masterpieces in Hollywood
Ivan Passer, who has died aged 86, was one of the new wave of Czech film directors who emerged during the social and cultural democratisation of the mid-60s that afforded them unprecedented artistic freedom. With his childhood friend Miloš Forman, Passer co-wrote A Blonde in Love and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), and directed Intimate Lighting (1965), his brilliant feature film debut.
In that short period, Passer, Forman, Vera Chytilová, Jirí Menzel and Jan Němec, among others, made films that rejected the official state socialist-realist aesthetic and produced eclectic, highly assured features that captured the world’s attention.
Ivan Passer, who has died aged 86, was one of the new wave of Czech film directors who emerged during the social and cultural democratisation of the mid-60s that afforded them unprecedented artistic freedom. With his childhood friend Miloš Forman, Passer co-wrote A Blonde in Love and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), and directed Intimate Lighting (1965), his brilliant feature film debut.
In that short period, Passer, Forman, Vera Chytilová, Jirí Menzel and Jan Němec, among others, made films that rejected the official state socialist-realist aesthetic and produced eclectic, highly assured features that captured the world’s attention.
- 1/17/2020
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Has it been 35 years since film director Ivan Passer, who died Jan. 9, explained to me why horror movies will never stop getting financed and distributed? “They don’t give their producers any sleepless nights,” the sage Czech maestro quietly, sagely noted, summing up a multitude of film business realities in a simple haiku.
And how many decades ago was it when I was first gripped by Passer’s greatest film, “Cutter’s Way,” a completely uncompromising and richly drawn portrait of young Americans facing down the Masters of War that Bob Dylan sang about?
When did I first marvel at the wit and compassion Passer brought to the screenplays of his great fellow countryman Milos Forman? I saw their unforgettable social satire “The Firemen’s Ball” when it first graced our American shores and scored a best foreign language film nomination in the late ’60s.
Forman’s Czech New Wave classic “Loves of a Blonde,...
And how many decades ago was it when I was first gripped by Passer’s greatest film, “Cutter’s Way,” a completely uncompromising and richly drawn portrait of young Americans facing down the Masters of War that Bob Dylan sang about?
When did I first marvel at the wit and compassion Passer brought to the screenplays of his great fellow countryman Milos Forman? I saw their unforgettable social satire “The Firemen’s Ball” when it first graced our American shores and scored a best foreign language film nomination in the late ’60s.
Forman’s Czech New Wave classic “Loves of a Blonde,...
- 1/10/2020
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Ivan Passer, a leading figure of the Czech new wave who directed films including “Cutter’s Way,” died Thursday of pulmonary complications in Reno, Nevada, an associate of the family confirmed. He was 86.
Passer was a close friend and collaborator of the late Czech filmmaker Milos Forman. Passer met Forman at a boarding school for delinquents or children who had lost their parents during the war (other students included Vaclav Havel and Jerzy Skolimowski). They reunited at film school in Prague, where he began collaborating on Forman’s films including “Loves of a Blonde” and “The Firemen’s Ball.” Passer’s first feature was the 1965 film “Intimate Lighting.”
Passer and Forman escaped Prague in 1969 as Russian tanks were advancing, when they pretended to be visiting Austria for the weekend. Though they lacked exit visas, a border guard who was a fan of Forman’s let them cross to safety, Passer told Variety...
Passer was a close friend and collaborator of the late Czech filmmaker Milos Forman. Passer met Forman at a boarding school for delinquents or children who had lost their parents during the war (other students included Vaclav Havel and Jerzy Skolimowski). They reunited at film school in Prague, where he began collaborating on Forman’s films including “Loves of a Blonde” and “The Firemen’s Ball.” Passer’s first feature was the 1965 film “Intimate Lighting.”
Passer and Forman escaped Prague in 1969 as Russian tanks were advancing, when they pretended to be visiting Austria for the weekend. Though they lacked exit visas, a border guard who was a fan of Forman’s let them cross to safety, Passer told Variety...
- 1/10/2020
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Alfonso Cuarón will present a restored version of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Peter Fonda will present a restored Easy Rider as part of this year’s Cannes Classics lineup.
Kubrick’s horror classic was has been remastered by Warner Bros in 4K using a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. After being presented 50 years ago on the Croisette, Dennis Hopper’s 1969 classic Easy Rider has been restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna. It was restored from the 35mm original picture negative.
The sidebar (see the full lineup below) will screen three Luis Buñuel films and Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan. There will also be a tribute to Lina Wertmüller, the first female filmmaker ever nominated as a director at the Academy Awards in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze. Wertmüller will introduce the film with lead actor Giancarlo Giannini in attendance.
Kubrick’s horror classic was has been remastered by Warner Bros in 4K using a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. After being presented 50 years ago on the Croisette, Dennis Hopper’s 1969 classic Easy Rider has been restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna. It was restored from the 35mm original picture negative.
The sidebar (see the full lineup below) will screen three Luis Buñuel films and Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle In Milan. There will also be a tribute to Lina Wertmüller, the first female filmmaker ever nominated as a director at the Academy Awards in 1977 for Pasqualino Settebellezze. Wertmüller will introduce the film with lead actor Giancarlo Giannini in attendance.
- 4/26/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
“Easy Rider,” Dennis Hopper’s landmark counter-culture film, is leading the Cannes Classics lineup at 2019’s Cannes Film Festival in honor 0f the movie’s 50th anniversary this year.
Hopper’s “Easy Rider” returns to the festival after being nominated for the Palme d’Or in 1969 and winning Hopper a prize for Best First Work.
The lineup also includes a special midnight screening of “The Shining” as presented by Alfonso Cuarón, the 25th anniversary of the cult film “La Cité de la peur,” a spotlight on three films from Spanish and Mexican surrealist Luis Buñuel, the attendance of director Lina Wertmüller, a look back at the 1951 Palme d’Or winner “Miracle in Milan” from Italian director Vittorio De Sica, a tribute to the late Milos Forman, and a screening of the first ever Japanese animated film shown in color.
Also Read: Directors' Fortnight Announces Lineup, 16 Directors to Make Cannes Debut
Finally,...
Hopper’s “Easy Rider” returns to the festival after being nominated for the Palme d’Or in 1969 and winning Hopper a prize for Best First Work.
The lineup also includes a special midnight screening of “The Shining” as presented by Alfonso Cuarón, the 25th anniversary of the cult film “La Cité de la peur,” a spotlight on three films from Spanish and Mexican surrealist Luis Buñuel, the attendance of director Lina Wertmüller, a look back at the 1951 Palme d’Or winner “Miracle in Milan” from Italian director Vittorio De Sica, a tribute to the late Milos Forman, and a screening of the first ever Japanese animated film shown in color.
Also Read: Directors' Fortnight Announces Lineup, 16 Directors to Make Cannes Debut
Finally,...
- 4/26/2019
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Programme will also pay tribute to Milos Forman.
A screening of Easy Rider attended by lead actor Peter Fonda and a midnight screening of The Shining presented by Alfonso Cuarón lead the programme of the 16th edition of Cannes Classics, the heritage cinema section of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).
Fonda, who co-wrote and co-produced the American independent classic as well as starred in it, will be present to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The film had its world premiere in Competition on the Croisette in 1969.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón will present a midnight screening of Stanley Kubrick’s...
A screening of Easy Rider attended by lead actor Peter Fonda and a midnight screening of The Shining presented by Alfonso Cuarón lead the programme of the 16th edition of Cannes Classics, the heritage cinema section of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).
Fonda, who co-wrote and co-produced the American independent classic as well as starred in it, will be present to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The film had its world premiere in Competition on the Croisette in 1969.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón will present a midnight screening of Stanley Kubrick’s...
- 4/26/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Milos Forman would’ve celebrated his 87th birthday on February 18, 2019. The late director, who passed away in 2018, only made a dozen movies in his career, yet several of those are classics. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 12 of Forman’s films, ranked worst to best.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, Forman first came to international attention with “Loves of a Blonde” (1965) and “The Firemen’s Ball” (1967), both of which earned Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film. In those early works, the director showed an affinity for antiauthoritarianism and oddball outsiders that would animate his best work.
SEEJack Nicholson movies: 45 greatest films ranked worst to best
He made his American debut with “Taking Off” (1971), and just four years later he was collecting his first Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975). The comedic drama about a mental patient (Jack Nicholson) rebelling against...
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1932, Forman first came to international attention with “Loves of a Blonde” (1965) and “The Firemen’s Ball” (1967), both of which earned Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film. In those early works, the director showed an affinity for antiauthoritarianism and oddball outsiders that would animate his best work.
SEEJack Nicholson movies: 45 greatest films ranked worst to best
He made his American debut with “Taking Off” (1971), and just four years later he was collecting his first Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975). The comedic drama about a mental patient (Jack Nicholson) rebelling against...
- 2/18/2019
- by Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
In the pantheon of movies set within the constraints of a single, hectic day — from “Dog Day Afternoon” to “Dazed and Confused” — “Give Me Liberty” earns points for cramming its plot with new twists every step of the way. The plight of young Russian-American Vic (newcomer Chris Galust) as he speeds around Milwaukee in a handicapped transport and juggles a series of setbacks unfolds through a series of complications that collapse into chaos every few minutes. But even as that process grows exhausting across two packed hours, it’s a dizzying blast to watch Vic’s day fall apart again and again, as he struggles to mine meaning from the chaos.
Director Kirill Mikhanovsky’s sophomore effort is a breathless dark comedy that takes occasional tragic and bittersweet detours as it maps out the soft-spoken Vic’s hectic world. It doesn’t take long for Vic’s journey to become an overwhelming,...
Director Kirill Mikhanovsky’s sophomore effort is a breathless dark comedy that takes occasional tragic and bittersweet detours as it maps out the soft-spoken Vic’s hectic world. It doesn’t take long for Vic’s journey to become an overwhelming,...
- 1/25/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Boots Riley made a big splash with his directorial debut, “Sorry to Bother You,” which he also wrote. Known for decades for his hip-hop group The Coup, Riley is now receiving much acclaim for his foray into filmmaking, earning a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for Best First-Time Feature Film Director and other critics prizes.
Riley recently spoke with Gold Derby contributing editor Zach Laws about what sparked the idea for “Sorry to Bother You,” his influences across various mediums and what he has planned next. Watch the exclusive webchat above and read the complete interview transcript below.
See‘Sorry to Bother You’ is a strong Oscar contender for Best Original Screenplay
Gold Derby: Boots Riley, you made your feature film debut with the movie “Sorry to Bother You.” Suffice to say it’s one of the most interesting movies of the year. Certainly one of the most interesting...
Riley recently spoke with Gold Derby contributing editor Zach Laws about what sparked the idea for “Sorry to Bother You,” his influences across various mediums and what he has planned next. Watch the exclusive webchat above and read the complete interview transcript below.
See‘Sorry to Bother You’ is a strong Oscar contender for Best Original Screenplay
Gold Derby: Boots Riley, you made your feature film debut with the movie “Sorry to Bother You.” Suffice to say it’s one of the most interesting movies of the year. Certainly one of the most interesting...
- 1/20/2019
- by Kevin Jacobsen
- Gold Derby
“We have willingly chosen to go backwards to a world full of ignorance and distrust fuelled by intolerance.”
Tim Robbins kicked off the 53rd Karlovy Vary Film Festival (June 29-July 7) with a politically charged speech attacking Donald Trump.
The Shawshank Redemption star was receiving the festival’s Crystal Globe on Friday (June 29) for outstanding contribution to world cinema.
In his acceptance speech during the opening ceremony at the Hotel Thermal, Robbins told the audience that he auditioned for the role of bully Biff in Back To The Future, saying: “We are living through a Marty McFly moment. We have gone back to the 1950s.
Tim Robbins kicked off the 53rd Karlovy Vary Film Festival (June 29-July 7) with a politically charged speech attacking Donald Trump.
The Shawshank Redemption star was receiving the festival’s Crystal Globe on Friday (June 29) for outstanding contribution to world cinema.
In his acceptance speech during the opening ceremony at the Hotel Thermal, Robbins told the audience that he auditioned for the role of bully Biff in Back To The Future, saying: “We are living through a Marty McFly moment. We have gone back to the 1950s.
- 6/30/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Launching with a tribute to the founding of Czechoslovakia a century ago, the 53rd edition of the Karlovy Vary film fest kicked off Friday amid gymnastic stunts, fireworks and a call to action by Tim Robbins, who lambasted President Trump for his maltreatment of refugee children. The actor-director joined in the commemoration of Czech freedom, paying tribute to the leading voice of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Vaclav Havel. The courage of such men is as needful today as it was when the masses turned out in Prague to demand the end of communism, Robbins said.
Recalling his unsuccessful bid in 1985 to land the role of bullying Biff in “Back to the Future,” Robbins confessed that lately, when reading the news, he has been struck by the image of a “petulant, overblown, child monster.”
He explained that the time travel concept in the Michael J. Fox film is relevant today because...
Recalling his unsuccessful bid in 1985 to land the role of bullying Biff in “Back to the Future,” Robbins confessed that lately, when reading the news, he has been struck by the image of a “petulant, overblown, child monster.”
He explained that the time travel concept in the Michael J. Fox film is relevant today because...
- 6/29/2018
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Two-time Oscar winning Czech director Milos Forman has died at the age of 86, according to Reuters and reports. Forman’s wife Martina informed Czech news agency Ctk that the filmmaker passed after a brief illness in the Us.
Part of the Czech new wave, Forman graduated from the Prague Film Faculty of the Academy of Dramatic Arts, and caught global attention with such titles as Black Peter (1964), The Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball(1967). The latter two were Oscar nominees for best foreign film.
In 1968, he fled Czechoslovakia during the Prague spring for the Us. The Fireman’s Ball, about an ill-fated event in a provincial town, was a knock on Eastern European Communism and created a stir in his homeland with the regime. His 1971 comedy, Taking Off, his first American title, won the 1971 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and starred Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin...
Part of the Czech new wave, Forman graduated from the Prague Film Faculty of the Academy of Dramatic Arts, and caught global attention with such titles as Black Peter (1964), The Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball(1967). The latter two were Oscar nominees for best foreign film.
In 1968, he fled Czechoslovakia during the Prague spring for the Us. The Fireman’s Ball, about an ill-fated event in a provincial town, was a knock on Eastern European Communism and created a stir in his homeland with the regime. His 1971 comedy, Taking Off, his first American title, won the 1971 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and starred Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin...
- 4/14/2018
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Last week we learned, via the National Film Archive (Czech Republic) that Janus Films (and the Criterion Collection) had just signed a new deal with plans to bring 30 classic Czech films to the Us.
From the announcement:
The National Film Archive has concluded an important contract with distribution company Janus Films which opens the road to expending knowledge of Czech classic films in all of North America.
Among the more than 30 Czech classic films available to American audiences for screening in cinemas and on DVD in the Us and Canada are titles such as The Cremator, Marketa Lazarová, All My Good Countrymen, Three Nuts for Cinderella. It’s made possible thanks to a new contract signed by National Film Archive director Michal Bregant and distribution company Janus Films.
Michal Bregant offered a comment: “We have signed the contract symbolically this week in Bologna at the festival Il cinema ritrovato, which...
From the announcement:
The National Film Archive has concluded an important contract with distribution company Janus Films which opens the road to expending knowledge of Czech classic films in all of North America.
Among the more than 30 Czech classic films available to American audiences for screening in cinemas and on DVD in the Us and Canada are titles such as The Cremator, Marketa Lazarová, All My Good Countrymen, Three Nuts for Cinderella. It’s made possible thanks to a new contract signed by National Film Archive director Michal Bregant and distribution company Janus Films.
Michal Bregant offered a comment: “We have signed the contract symbolically this week in Bologna at the festival Il cinema ritrovato, which...
- 7/12/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Pablo Larraín (Courtesy: Andrew Cowie/Afp)
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
There’s one director this year that has a chance at being a major crossover success by having two separate films nominated in both the best picture and best foreign language film categories: Pablo Larraín. This filmmaker has Jackie as well as Neruda and could join an elite group of directors who been able to have films — or even one film — in both of these major categories.
Jackie, which stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is considered a frontrunner in the Oscars race this year by this site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg. Neruda, which follows an inspector who hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, is Chile’s submission for best foreign language film this year and is considered a major threat in that contest. This would be a great feat — especially for someone who,...
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
There’s one director this year that has a chance at being a major crossover success by having two separate films nominated in both the best picture and best foreign language film categories: Pablo Larraín. This filmmaker has Jackie as well as Neruda and could join an elite group of directors who been able to have films — or even one film — in both of these major categories.
Jackie, which stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is considered a frontrunner in the Oscars race this year by this site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg. Neruda, which follows an inspector who hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, is Chile’s submission for best foreign language film this year and is considered a major threat in that contest. This would be a great feat — especially for someone who,...
- 11/17/2016
- by Carson Blackwelder
- Scott Feinberg
Above: Italian 2-foglio for Loves of a Blonde (Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1965).As the 54th New York Film Festival winds to a close this weekend I thought it would be instructive to look back at its counterpart of 50 years ago. Sadly, for the sake of symmetry, there are no filmmakers straddling both the 1966 and the 2016 editions, though Agnès Varda (88 years old), Jean-Luc Godard (85), Carlos Saura (84) and Jirí Menzel (78)—all of whom had films in the 1966 Nyff—are all still making films, and Milos Forman (84), Ivan Passer (83) and Peter Watkins (80) are all still with us. There are only two filmmakers in the current Nyff who could potentially have been in the 1966 edition and they are Ken Loach (80) and Paul Verhoeven (78). The current Nyff is remarkably youthful—half the filmmakers weren’t even born in 1966 and, with the exception of Loach and Verhoeven, the old guard is now represented by Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar,...
- 10/15/2016
- MUBI
Thrillist "Why everyone was wrong about Warcraft" - the summer's most underrated movie?
Mnpp great moments in movie shelves hits Young Frankenstein
The Wrap looks at Colton Haynes winning an Hrc award. Why Colton, exactly?
Criterion Louis Garrel chooses movies from the Criterion closet. He likes Jacques Tati, Loves of a Blonde, and Amarcord among others
FlavorWire looks back at Madonna & Sean's Shanghai Surprise in its Bad Movie Night column
Telerama (in French) Alain Guirardie talks about his filmography - he thinks he can do better than Stranger by the Lake!
Sbs hilarious satire video on White Fragility in the Workplace
Slate pits Bad Moms against Ghostbusters because women have to be pitted against each other!
NY Times on current film restoration anxiety asking the following question which I swear is going to give me regular nightmares:
What happens to an art when its foundational medium disappears?
Today's Must Read...
Mnpp great moments in movie shelves hits Young Frankenstein
The Wrap looks at Colton Haynes winning an Hrc award. Why Colton, exactly?
Criterion Louis Garrel chooses movies from the Criterion closet. He likes Jacques Tati, Loves of a Blonde, and Amarcord among others
FlavorWire looks back at Madonna & Sean's Shanghai Surprise in its Bad Movie Night column
Telerama (in French) Alain Guirardie talks about his filmography - he thinks he can do better than Stranger by the Lake!
Sbs hilarious satire video on White Fragility in the Workplace
Slate pits Bad Moms against Ghostbusters because women have to be pitted against each other!
NY Times on current film restoration anxiety asking the following question which I swear is going to give me regular nightmares:
What happens to an art when its foundational medium disappears?
Today's Must Read...
- 8/31/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival (September 30 – October 16), making its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall. The 13th is the first-ever nonfiction work to open the festival, and will debut on Netflix and open in a limited theatrical run on October 7.
Chronicling the history of racial inequality in the United States, The 13th examines how our country has produced the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the majority of those imprisoned being African-American. The title of DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution—“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States . . . ” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass incarceration and...
Chronicling the history of racial inequality in the United States, The 13th examines how our country has produced the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the majority of those imprisoned being African-American. The title of DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution—“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States . . . ” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass incarceration and...
- 7/19/2016
- by Kellvin Chavez
- LRMonline.com
If the languid summer tentpole season has you down, fear not, as the promising fall slate is around the corner and today brings the first news of what we’ll see at the 2016 New York Film Festival. For the first time ever, a non-fiction film will open The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s festival: Ava DuVernay‘s The 13th. Her timely follow-up to Selma chronicles the history of racial inequality in the United States and will arrive on Netflix and in limited theaters shortly after its premiere at Nyff, on October 7.
“It is a true honor for me and my collaborators to premiere The 13th as the opening night selection of the New York Film Festival,” Ava DuVernay says. “This film was made as an answer to my own questions about how and why we have become the most incarcerated nation in the world, how and why we regard...
“It is a true honor for me and my collaborators to premiere The 13th as the opening night selection of the New York Film Festival,” Ava DuVernay says. “This film was made as an answer to my own questions about how and why we have become the most incarcerated nation in the world, how and why we regard...
- 7/19/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
It’s a very De Palma weekend, with Dressed to Kill showing this Friday, Scarface and Blow Out on Saturday, and The Fury this Sunday.
Looney Tunes: Back In Action screens on Saturday.
Underground New York filmmaker Beth B. is celebrated in a weekend-long retrospective.
A new 16mm print of Kapauku plays on Sunday.
BAMcinématek...
Metrograph
It’s a very De Palma weekend, with Dressed to Kill showing this Friday, Scarface and Blow Out on Saturday, and The Fury this Sunday.
Looney Tunes: Back In Action screens on Saturday.
Underground New York filmmaker Beth B. is celebrated in a weekend-long retrospective.
A new 16mm print of Kapauku plays on Sunday.
BAMcinématek...
- 6/10/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Capricious Summer is fairly easy to watch (a slight 76 minute feature, in color), summarize (a whimsical sex comedy about three middle-aged men in a small rustic town are shaken out of their routines when they’re distracted by the arrival of an itinerant magician and his beautiful assistant) and compartmentalize (coming at the tail end of the Czech New Wave, this is Jiří Menzel’s less celebrated follow-up to the Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains.) But just as conveniently as the film might fit within those pigeonholes, there’s a serious risk of underestimating what Menzel places before us here.
Comfortably nestled within a volume of the Eclipse Series expressly dedicated to the aforementioned Czech New Wave, Capricious Summer is at risk of being regarded as simply one of six quirky, enjoyable treats in that box. Each film has its own distinctive feel,...
Capricious Summer is fairly easy to watch (a slight 76 minute feature, in color), summarize (a whimsical sex comedy about three middle-aged men in a small rustic town are shaken out of their routines when they’re distracted by the arrival of an itinerant magician and his beautiful assistant) and compartmentalize (coming at the tail end of the Czech New Wave, this is Jiří Menzel’s less celebrated follow-up to the Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains.) But just as conveniently as the film might fit within those pigeonholes, there’s a serious risk of underestimating what Menzel places before us here.
Comfortably nestled within a volume of the Eclipse Series expressly dedicated to the aforementioned Czech New Wave, Capricious Summer is at risk of being regarded as simply one of six quirky, enjoyable treats in that box. Each film has its own distinctive feel,...
- 5/21/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
★★★★☆ Given the very nature of the Czechoslovak New Wave, it may seem obvious to note that certain films focused on the individual's relationship with the state. In the case of the second volume of Second Run's collected works from the movement, however, it is a necessity. Comprised of Milos Forman's A Blonde in Love (1965), Jan Nemec's The Party and the Guests (1966) and Jirí Menzel's Larks on a String (1990), this newly released box set brings together a trio of hugely important films from the distributor's catalogue.
- 12/9/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Milos Forman was the prince of the Prague Spring with this Czech New Wave classic, a hilarious black comedy about the cheerful corruption and incompetence of petty bureaucrats. A fire brigade throws a bash, and by the end of the evening the lottery prizes are all stolen and the beauty contest has become a travesty. And they can't even put out a simple fire. The joke is clearly aimed at the Communist government. The Fireman's Ball Region-Free Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Academy (UK) 1967 / Color / / 71 min. / Horí, má panenko / Street Date October 12, 2015 / Available from Amazon UK £14.99 Cinematography Miroslav Ondrícek Production Designer Karel Cerny Film Editor Miroslav Hájek Original Music Karel Mares Writing credits Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Václav Sasek Produced by Rudolf Hajek, Carlo Ponti Directed by Milos Forman
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
We know Milos Forman from his American pictures Hair and Ragtime, but he made big...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
We know Milos Forman from his American pictures Hair and Ragtime, but he made big...
- 11/17/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos’s 1965 film The Shop on Main Street, which was the first film from Eastern Europe to win an Academy Award, celebrates it’s 50th anniversary this year. The Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino, CA will be holding a special one-night-only showing of the 128-minute drama on Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 7:30 pm. Scheduled to appear in person are film director Ivan Passer and Michal Sedlacek, Consul General of Czech Republic in Los Angeles.
From the press release:
The Shop On Main Street (1965) was the first film from Eastern Europe ever to win an Academy Award. Fifty years ago this powerful Czech drama won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, it was one of the key films in the Czech New Wave that flourished in the 1960s, before the Soviet invasion of 1968 stamped out this vital movement. Josef Kroner...
From the press release:
The Shop On Main Street (1965) was the first film from Eastern Europe ever to win an Academy Award. Fifty years ago this powerful Czech drama won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, it was one of the key films in the Czech New Wave that flourished in the 1960s, before the Soviet invasion of 1968 stamped out this vital movement. Josef Kroner...
- 6/6/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Golden Globes are considering “Ida” directed and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski (“Last Resort", “My Summer of Love"), a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960's Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation. The film premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival and was also featured at the 2013 Toronto and 2014 Sundance film festivals.
“Ida” won the 2014 European Film Awards for Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Screenwriter, Best European Cinematographer and the People’s Choice Award. The film was named the Best Foreign Language Film by the New York Film Critics Circle and won the 2014 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Agata Kulesza) and Best Foreign Language Film. "Ida" is also nominated for the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film. It's also the Polish Oscar® entry and has made the 9-film shortlist.
Below is my interview with director Pawel Pawlikowski published last year prior to the film theatrical release:
I happen to love Jewish films and so when I saw "Ida" was playing in Toronto, it was first on my list of “must-sees”. However, I am no longer an “acquisitions” person, nor am I a film reviewer. My work keeps me out of the screening room because we work with filmmakers looking to get their films into the hands of those who will show their films. In other words, we advise and strategize for getting new films into the film circuit’s festivals, distributors' and international sales agents’ hands.
So I missed Ida at its Tiff debut. In Cartagena, where I was invited to cover the festival for SydneysBuzz and where I was gathering information for the book I have just completed on Iberoamerican Film Financing, it showed again in the jewel-box of a theater in this jewel-box of a city. But when I saw the first shots – and fell in love with it – I also saw it was subtitled in Spanish and rather than strain over translating, I left the theater. Later on, Pawel Pawlikowski and I sat next to each other at a fabulous dinner in one of Cartagena’s many outdoor squares, and we discussed the title of my book rather than his films which was a big loss on one hand but a big gain for me on the other because we got to speak as “civilians” rather than keeping the conversation on a “professional” level.
Read More: Review 'Ida' by Carlos Aguilar
Now Music Box is opening Ida in L.A. on May 2, 2014 at the Laemmle in L.A. and in N.Y. and I made sure to take advantage of my press status, not only to see the film but to interview Pawel on himself and the film.
There were two ways to look at this film: as a conceit, as in, “what a great story – a girl about to take her vows in the convent which raised her discovers she is Jewish and returns to the society which destroyed her family” -- or as a journey of a fresh soul into the heart of humanity and finds that she is blessed by being able to decide upon her own destiny within it.
Parenthetically, this seems to me to be a companion piece to the Berlinale film "Stations of the Cross", another journey of a fresh soul into the spiritual life of religion as she struggles in the society which formed her.
And so I began my interview with Pawel:
I could look at this film in two ways, I’ve heard the audiences talk about whether the film is Anti-Polish or Anti-Semitic, but that is not my concern, I want to know if it is just a great story or does it go deeper than that?
Pawel immediately responded, I Think he said, “I am not a professional filmmaker, and I do not make a ‘certain type of film’. I make films depending on where I am in life. A film about exile, a film about first love. Films mark where I am in my life.
In the '60s, when I was a kid and first saw the world this was how I depicted it in this film…seeing the world for the first time…life is a journey and filmmaking marks where you (the audience) are in life and it marks where I am in life. Each film is different as a result.
After making "Woman on the 5th," about the hero’s (in my own head) being lost in Paris, a weird sort of production – directed by a Polish director with a British and an American actor and actress, I craved solid ground, a familiar place or a “return” to important things of the past, and I returned to a certain period in Poland which I found very much alive, for myself then and again as I made this movie and in Polish history itself.
Ida takes place 17 years after the war and shortly after after Stalin’s crimes were being made public by Krushchev. The Totalitarian State of Poland bent a bit; censorship was lifted a bit and a new culture was developing. Music was jazz and rock and roll. Poland was very alive then: the spirit of going your own way, not caring what anyone thinks, creating a style in cinema, in art, music...
I myself was a young boy in the '60s and I left Poland in '71 when I was 13 to stay with my mother in England where she had married a Brit. My father lived in the West; they were divorced and I went for a holiday and stayed.
I went to school in the U.K. but at 13, I was thrown out and I went to Germany where my father lived and matriculated there. I couldn’t go back to Poland as I had left illegally and was only allowed back in to visit in the late '70s. I returned in 1980 during Solidarity and from 1989 to the fall of the Wall, I went back often.
Ida is a film about identity, family, faith, guilt, socialism and music. I wanted to make a film about history that wouldnʼt feel like a historical film— a film that is moral, but has no lessons to offer. I wanted to tell a story in which ʻeveryone has their reasonsʼ; a story closer to poetry than plot. Most of all, I wanted to steer clear of the usual rhetoric of the Polish cinema. The Poland in "Ida" is shown by an ʻoutsiderʼ with no ax to grind, filtered through personal memory and emotion, the sounds and images of childhood…
I read you are going to make another film about Poland…
It is not about Poland but it is set in Poland. I am working on three projects, which is how I work. I keep writing and find one of them has the legs to carry me…which one is not yet known.
You mentioned in an interview with Sight and Sound your top 10 films…
Yes, which ones did you like? They ask me this every year and every year the list changes for me. There are other good ones, like Once Upon a Time in Anatolia…they are not all the old classics and they are not necessarily my favorites or what I think are “the best”. Again they depend on where I am in my own life.
The ones I like on your list were Ashes and Diamonds which I saw in New York in my freshman year in college, "La Dolce Vita" …"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Some Like It Hot."
I actually think "8 ½" is more remarkable than "La Dolce Vita." I also like "Loves of a Blonde" very much….
I found "Ashes and Diamonds" so extraordinary, I then had to see the actor in "Man of Marble" which took me to the next "Man of Steel" and Man of…whatever... until I thought I knew Wadja. What did you make of this film?
I saw it later as I was too young when it came out in the '60s. I saw it in the '70s when it was already a classic. Its impact on me was that it was well-done and about something. It is a comment about a man who decides whether to fight or to live. It could be remade in any country coming out of civil war.
To return to Ida, I noticed stylistic choices you made that I would like you to comment on.
The landscapes and interiors were very large and sparse. Interiors always had someone in the back ground moving, arranging or walking by in silence.
Yes there is always some life and the movements of people in the background are like music in the film, though it is not really music…
Yes, the music in the film is great. The magnificence of the classical music someone is playing, like the aunt…
Yes I only want to use real music at times that real music is part of the story. I didn’t want film music. I wanted it to come out of silence. It is part of the scene like the background movement of people. Each piece means something. The pop songs were key from the start. They were fatally imprinted on my childhood memory. They really color the landscape. Coltrane and stuff came from my adult self.
Incidentally, the late '50s and early '60s were great for jazz in Poland. There was a real explosion: Komeda, Namyslowski, Stanko, Wroblewski... Apart from telling Idaʼs story, I wanted to conjure up a certain image of Poland, an image that I hold dear. My country may have been grey, oppressive and enslaved in the early '60s, but in some ways it was 'cooler' and more original than the Poland of today, and somehow more universally resonant.
Iʼm sure that lots of Poles with a chip on their shoulder, and there are many, will fail to notice the beauty, the love that went into our film—and will accuse me of damaging Poland's image by focusing on the melancholy, the provincial, the grotesque… And then there's the matter of a Polish farmer killing a Jewish family… thereʼs bound to be trouble. On the other hand, thereʼs also a Stalinist state prosecutor of Jewish origins, which might land me in hot water in other quarters. Still, I hope the film is sufficiently specific and un-rhetorical enough to be understood on its own terms.
The music Ida’s aunt was playing before she…what are your thoughts about her aunt?
Neither Ida nor her aunt is typical. Wanda’s imprimatur is that she has no self-pity, no regrets, no sentimentality.
She had fought in the resistance rather than raise a family. She had been a super idealistic Marxist, became a part of the New Establishment and got drawn into the games and hypocrisy, sending people to death for “impeding progress”.
She reminds me of my father in some ways. Her acerbic sense of humor. I gave her some of my father’s lines.
Where Did The Character Of Wanda Come From?
When I was doing my post-graduate degree at Oxford in the early '80s I befriended Professor Brus, a genial economist and reformist Marxist who left Poland in ʻ68. I was particularly fond of his wife Helena, who smoked, drank, joked and told great stories. She didn't suffer fools gladly, but she struck me as a warm and generous woman. I lost touch with the Bruses when I left Oxford, but some 10 years later I heard on BBC News that the Polish government was requesting the extradition of one Helena Brus-Wolinska, resident in Oxford, on the grounds of crimes against humanity. It turned out that the charming old lady had been a Stalinist prosecutor in her late twenties. Among other things, she engineered the death in a show trial of a completely innocent man and a real hero of the Resistance, General ‘Nil’ Fieldorf. It was a bit of a shock. I couldn't square the warm, ironic woman I knew with the ruthless fanatic and Stalinist hangman. This paradox has haunted me for years. I even tried to write a film about her, but couldnʼt get my head around or into someone so contradictory. Putting her into Idaʼs story helped bring that character to life. Conversely, putting the ex-believer with blood on her hands next to Ida helped me define the character and the journey of the young nun.
By 1956, illusions about society were gone. Stalin’s crimes were revealed in 1961, there was a change of government, a new generation was coming of age. Wanda was a judge they called “Red Wanda” and had sent enemies of the state to their deaths. The older generation was left high and dry. Communism had become a shabby reality. Her despair was apparent– she had been heroic and now the system was a joke.
And then some creature from the past pops up and makes her reveal all she had swept under the carpet. She drank too much, there was no love in her life, only casual sex. But still she was straight-ahead, directed and unstoppable.
And then after the revelations of what had become of their parents and her child, her sister returns to the convent. There is nowhere for her to go. She hits a wall. She is heroic and there is no place for her in society anymore.
And Ida? Why did you choose such a person?
Ida has multiple origins, the most interesting ones probably not quite conscious. Let's say that I come from a family full of mysteries and contradictions and have lived in one sort of exile or another for most of my life. Questions of identity, family, blood, faith, belonging, and history have always been present.
I'd been playing for years with the story of a Catholic nun who discovers sheʼs Jewish. I originally set it in ʻ68, the year of student protests and the Communist Party sponsored anti-Semitic purges in Poland. The story involved a nun a bit older than Ida, as well as an embattled bishop and a state security officer, and the whole thing was more steeped in the politics of the day. The script was turning out a little too schematic, thriller-ish and plotty for my liking, so I put Ida aside for a while and went to Paris to make The Woman In The Fifth . I was in a different place at the time.
When I came back to Ida, I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted the film to be. My cowriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz and I stripped the whole thing down, made it less plotty, the characters richer and less functional. Ida became younger, more inexperienced, more of a blank slate, a young girl on the brink of life. Also we moved the story to ʻ62, a more nondescript period in Poland, but also a time of which I have most vivid memories, my own impressions as a child - unaware of what was going on in the adult world, but all the more sensitive to images and sounds. Some shots in the film couldʼve come from my family album.
In the course of the film, Ida undergoes a change. She becomes energized. When she returns to the convent you can see it in her body movements. It is the only time we used a hand-held camera to depict the new energy she has acquired. She is going into the spiritual in a different way. The old way elicited a giggle from her; she had seen the sensuality of the novice nun bathing…whether she is returning to the convent to stay is left to the viewer to decide.
The viewer is brought into a space of associations they make on their own, the film is more like poetry where the feeling of the viewer is the private one of the viewer, not one the film imposes.
Yes, each woman enters a new reality and comes out changed, and I was left thinking there was nothing better of the two life choices, the “normal” life of love and family and the “spiritual” life of simple living and silent devotion. There needs to be some balance between the two, but what is that? I still don’t know.
On a last note: I noticed in the end credits you thanked Alfonso Cuarón. Why was that?
Yes he liked the film a lot. There were many people I thanked, like Agnieszka Holland. These are friends I can show my work to. They protect me against critics and festivals. This group of friends can also be nasty, but they are honest friends.
Thank you so much Pawel for your insights. I look forward to meeting you again “on the circuit”.
To my readers, here are the nuts and bolts of the film:
Music Box Films is the proud U.S. distributor of "Ida," the award-winning film written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Ida world premiered at Telluride 2013 and Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Fipresci Award for Best Film; then played the London Film Festival where it won Best Film, and was the Grand Prix winner at the Warsaw Film Festival. It played as an Official Selection in the 2014 Sundance and New York Jewish Film Festivals.
Poland 1962. Anna (newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska) is a beautiful eighteen-year-old woman, preparing to become a nun at the convent where she has lived since orphaned as a child. She learns she has a living relative she must visit before taking her vows, her mother’s sister Wanda. Her aunt, she learns, is not only a former hard-line Communist state prosecutor notorious for sentencing priests and others to death, but also a Jew. Anna learns from her aunt that she too is Jewish - and that her real name is Ida. This revelation sets Anna, now Ida, on a journey to uncover her roots and confront the truth about her family. Together, the two women embark on a voyage of discovery of each other and their past. Ida has to choose between her birth identity and the religion that saved her from the massacres of the Nazi occupation of Poland. And Wanda must confront decisions she made during the War when she chose loyalty to the cause before family.
Following his breakthrough films "Last Resort" and BAFTA-award winning "My Summer of Love," "Ida" marks Polish-born, British writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski's first film set in his homeland. Ida stars Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza. It will open in Los Angeles on May 2 at the Laemmle's Royal. (Music Box Films, 80 minutes, unrated).
Its international producers, Eric Abraham (Portobello Pictures), Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film), Piotr Dzieciol (Opus Film) and coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum of Denmark sold about 30 territories in Toronto and to date it has sold to 43 territories where the film has opened.
Argentina - Cdi Films, Australia - Curious Film, Austria - Polyfilm is still playing it and to date it has grossed Us$10,733. Benelux – Cineart where it is also still playing and has grossed Us$185,026 in Belgium and Us$131,247 in The Netherlands, Canada – Eyesteelfilm and Films We Like, Czech Republic – Aerofilms, Denmark - Camera Film, Denmark - Portobello Film Sales, France - Memento Films Distribution where in three weeks it grossed $3,192,706, Germany - Arsenal and Maxmedien where it grossed $24,010, Greece - Strada Films, Hungary - Mozinet Ltd., Israel - Lev Films (Shani Films), Italy - Parthenos where it grossed $681,460., Norway – Arthaus grossed $59,920, Poland – Soloban where it grossed $333,714, Portugal - Midas Filmes, Spain - Caramel Films is still playing it and to date it has grossed $408,085, Sweden - Folkets Bio, Switzerland - Frenetic, Taiwan - Andrews Film Co. Ltd, U.K. - Artificial Eye and Curzon, U.S. – Music Box and Film Forum.
Production
(Poland) An Opus Film, Phoenix Film production in association with Portobello Pictures in coproduction with Canal Plus Poland, Phoenix Film Poland. (International sales: Fandango Portobello, Copenhagen.) Produced by Eric Abraham, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa Puszczynska. Coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum.
Crew
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Screenplay, Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Camera (B&W), Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski; editor, Jaroslaw Kaminski; production designers, Katarzyna Sobanska, Marcel Slawinski; costume designer, Aleksandra Staszko; Kristian Selin Eidnes Andersen; supervising sound editor, Claus Lynge; re-recording mixers, Lynge, Andreas Kongsgaard; visual effects, Stage 2; line producer, Magdalena Malisz; associate producer, Sofie Wanting Hassing.
With
Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik, Joanna Kulig.
“Ida” won the 2014 European Film Awards for Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Screenwriter, Best European Cinematographer and the People’s Choice Award. The film was named the Best Foreign Language Film by the New York Film Critics Circle and won the 2014 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Agata Kulesza) and Best Foreign Language Film. "Ida" is also nominated for the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film. It's also the Polish Oscar® entry and has made the 9-film shortlist.
Below is my interview with director Pawel Pawlikowski published last year prior to the film theatrical release:
I happen to love Jewish films and so when I saw "Ida" was playing in Toronto, it was first on my list of “must-sees”. However, I am no longer an “acquisitions” person, nor am I a film reviewer. My work keeps me out of the screening room because we work with filmmakers looking to get their films into the hands of those who will show their films. In other words, we advise and strategize for getting new films into the film circuit’s festivals, distributors' and international sales agents’ hands.
So I missed Ida at its Tiff debut. In Cartagena, where I was invited to cover the festival for SydneysBuzz and where I was gathering information for the book I have just completed on Iberoamerican Film Financing, it showed again in the jewel-box of a theater in this jewel-box of a city. But when I saw the first shots – and fell in love with it – I also saw it was subtitled in Spanish and rather than strain over translating, I left the theater. Later on, Pawel Pawlikowski and I sat next to each other at a fabulous dinner in one of Cartagena’s many outdoor squares, and we discussed the title of my book rather than his films which was a big loss on one hand but a big gain for me on the other because we got to speak as “civilians” rather than keeping the conversation on a “professional” level.
Read More: Review 'Ida' by Carlos Aguilar
Now Music Box is opening Ida in L.A. on May 2, 2014 at the Laemmle in L.A. and in N.Y. and I made sure to take advantage of my press status, not only to see the film but to interview Pawel on himself and the film.
There were two ways to look at this film: as a conceit, as in, “what a great story – a girl about to take her vows in the convent which raised her discovers she is Jewish and returns to the society which destroyed her family” -- or as a journey of a fresh soul into the heart of humanity and finds that she is blessed by being able to decide upon her own destiny within it.
Parenthetically, this seems to me to be a companion piece to the Berlinale film "Stations of the Cross", another journey of a fresh soul into the spiritual life of religion as she struggles in the society which formed her.
And so I began my interview with Pawel:
I could look at this film in two ways, I’ve heard the audiences talk about whether the film is Anti-Polish or Anti-Semitic, but that is not my concern, I want to know if it is just a great story or does it go deeper than that?
Pawel immediately responded, I Think he said, “I am not a professional filmmaker, and I do not make a ‘certain type of film’. I make films depending on where I am in life. A film about exile, a film about first love. Films mark where I am in my life.
In the '60s, when I was a kid and first saw the world this was how I depicted it in this film…seeing the world for the first time…life is a journey and filmmaking marks where you (the audience) are in life and it marks where I am in life. Each film is different as a result.
After making "Woman on the 5th," about the hero’s (in my own head) being lost in Paris, a weird sort of production – directed by a Polish director with a British and an American actor and actress, I craved solid ground, a familiar place or a “return” to important things of the past, and I returned to a certain period in Poland which I found very much alive, for myself then and again as I made this movie and in Polish history itself.
Ida takes place 17 years after the war and shortly after after Stalin’s crimes were being made public by Krushchev. The Totalitarian State of Poland bent a bit; censorship was lifted a bit and a new culture was developing. Music was jazz and rock and roll. Poland was very alive then: the spirit of going your own way, not caring what anyone thinks, creating a style in cinema, in art, music...
I myself was a young boy in the '60s and I left Poland in '71 when I was 13 to stay with my mother in England where she had married a Brit. My father lived in the West; they were divorced and I went for a holiday and stayed.
I went to school in the U.K. but at 13, I was thrown out and I went to Germany where my father lived and matriculated there. I couldn’t go back to Poland as I had left illegally and was only allowed back in to visit in the late '70s. I returned in 1980 during Solidarity and from 1989 to the fall of the Wall, I went back often.
Ida is a film about identity, family, faith, guilt, socialism and music. I wanted to make a film about history that wouldnʼt feel like a historical film— a film that is moral, but has no lessons to offer. I wanted to tell a story in which ʻeveryone has their reasonsʼ; a story closer to poetry than plot. Most of all, I wanted to steer clear of the usual rhetoric of the Polish cinema. The Poland in "Ida" is shown by an ʻoutsiderʼ with no ax to grind, filtered through personal memory and emotion, the sounds and images of childhood…
I read you are going to make another film about Poland…
It is not about Poland but it is set in Poland. I am working on three projects, which is how I work. I keep writing and find one of them has the legs to carry me…which one is not yet known.
You mentioned in an interview with Sight and Sound your top 10 films…
Yes, which ones did you like? They ask me this every year and every year the list changes for me. There are other good ones, like Once Upon a Time in Anatolia…they are not all the old classics and they are not necessarily my favorites or what I think are “the best”. Again they depend on where I am in my own life.
The ones I like on your list were Ashes and Diamonds which I saw in New York in my freshman year in college, "La Dolce Vita" …"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Some Like It Hot."
I actually think "8 ½" is more remarkable than "La Dolce Vita." I also like "Loves of a Blonde" very much….
I found "Ashes and Diamonds" so extraordinary, I then had to see the actor in "Man of Marble" which took me to the next "Man of Steel" and Man of…whatever... until I thought I knew Wadja. What did you make of this film?
I saw it later as I was too young when it came out in the '60s. I saw it in the '70s when it was already a classic. Its impact on me was that it was well-done and about something. It is a comment about a man who decides whether to fight or to live. It could be remade in any country coming out of civil war.
To return to Ida, I noticed stylistic choices you made that I would like you to comment on.
The landscapes and interiors were very large and sparse. Interiors always had someone in the back ground moving, arranging or walking by in silence.
Yes there is always some life and the movements of people in the background are like music in the film, though it is not really music…
Yes, the music in the film is great. The magnificence of the classical music someone is playing, like the aunt…
Yes I only want to use real music at times that real music is part of the story. I didn’t want film music. I wanted it to come out of silence. It is part of the scene like the background movement of people. Each piece means something. The pop songs were key from the start. They were fatally imprinted on my childhood memory. They really color the landscape. Coltrane and stuff came from my adult self.
Incidentally, the late '50s and early '60s were great for jazz in Poland. There was a real explosion: Komeda, Namyslowski, Stanko, Wroblewski... Apart from telling Idaʼs story, I wanted to conjure up a certain image of Poland, an image that I hold dear. My country may have been grey, oppressive and enslaved in the early '60s, but in some ways it was 'cooler' and more original than the Poland of today, and somehow more universally resonant.
Iʼm sure that lots of Poles with a chip on their shoulder, and there are many, will fail to notice the beauty, the love that went into our film—and will accuse me of damaging Poland's image by focusing on the melancholy, the provincial, the grotesque… And then there's the matter of a Polish farmer killing a Jewish family… thereʼs bound to be trouble. On the other hand, thereʼs also a Stalinist state prosecutor of Jewish origins, which might land me in hot water in other quarters. Still, I hope the film is sufficiently specific and un-rhetorical enough to be understood on its own terms.
The music Ida’s aunt was playing before she…what are your thoughts about her aunt?
Neither Ida nor her aunt is typical. Wanda’s imprimatur is that she has no self-pity, no regrets, no sentimentality.
She had fought in the resistance rather than raise a family. She had been a super idealistic Marxist, became a part of the New Establishment and got drawn into the games and hypocrisy, sending people to death for “impeding progress”.
She reminds me of my father in some ways. Her acerbic sense of humor. I gave her some of my father’s lines.
Where Did The Character Of Wanda Come From?
When I was doing my post-graduate degree at Oxford in the early '80s I befriended Professor Brus, a genial economist and reformist Marxist who left Poland in ʻ68. I was particularly fond of his wife Helena, who smoked, drank, joked and told great stories. She didn't suffer fools gladly, but she struck me as a warm and generous woman. I lost touch with the Bruses when I left Oxford, but some 10 years later I heard on BBC News that the Polish government was requesting the extradition of one Helena Brus-Wolinska, resident in Oxford, on the grounds of crimes against humanity. It turned out that the charming old lady had been a Stalinist prosecutor in her late twenties. Among other things, she engineered the death in a show trial of a completely innocent man and a real hero of the Resistance, General ‘Nil’ Fieldorf. It was a bit of a shock. I couldn't square the warm, ironic woman I knew with the ruthless fanatic and Stalinist hangman. This paradox has haunted me for years. I even tried to write a film about her, but couldnʼt get my head around or into someone so contradictory. Putting her into Idaʼs story helped bring that character to life. Conversely, putting the ex-believer with blood on her hands next to Ida helped me define the character and the journey of the young nun.
By 1956, illusions about society were gone. Stalin’s crimes were revealed in 1961, there was a change of government, a new generation was coming of age. Wanda was a judge they called “Red Wanda” and had sent enemies of the state to their deaths. The older generation was left high and dry. Communism had become a shabby reality. Her despair was apparent– she had been heroic and now the system was a joke.
And then some creature from the past pops up and makes her reveal all she had swept under the carpet. She drank too much, there was no love in her life, only casual sex. But still she was straight-ahead, directed and unstoppable.
And then after the revelations of what had become of their parents and her child, her sister returns to the convent. There is nowhere for her to go. She hits a wall. She is heroic and there is no place for her in society anymore.
And Ida? Why did you choose such a person?
Ida has multiple origins, the most interesting ones probably not quite conscious. Let's say that I come from a family full of mysteries and contradictions and have lived in one sort of exile or another for most of my life. Questions of identity, family, blood, faith, belonging, and history have always been present.
I'd been playing for years with the story of a Catholic nun who discovers sheʼs Jewish. I originally set it in ʻ68, the year of student protests and the Communist Party sponsored anti-Semitic purges in Poland. The story involved a nun a bit older than Ida, as well as an embattled bishop and a state security officer, and the whole thing was more steeped in the politics of the day. The script was turning out a little too schematic, thriller-ish and plotty for my liking, so I put Ida aside for a while and went to Paris to make The Woman In The Fifth . I was in a different place at the time.
When I came back to Ida, I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted the film to be. My cowriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz and I stripped the whole thing down, made it less plotty, the characters richer and less functional. Ida became younger, more inexperienced, more of a blank slate, a young girl on the brink of life. Also we moved the story to ʻ62, a more nondescript period in Poland, but also a time of which I have most vivid memories, my own impressions as a child - unaware of what was going on in the adult world, but all the more sensitive to images and sounds. Some shots in the film couldʼve come from my family album.
In the course of the film, Ida undergoes a change. She becomes energized. When she returns to the convent you can see it in her body movements. It is the only time we used a hand-held camera to depict the new energy she has acquired. She is going into the spiritual in a different way. The old way elicited a giggle from her; she had seen the sensuality of the novice nun bathing…whether she is returning to the convent to stay is left to the viewer to decide.
The viewer is brought into a space of associations they make on their own, the film is more like poetry where the feeling of the viewer is the private one of the viewer, not one the film imposes.
Yes, each woman enters a new reality and comes out changed, and I was left thinking there was nothing better of the two life choices, the “normal” life of love and family and the “spiritual” life of simple living and silent devotion. There needs to be some balance between the two, but what is that? I still don’t know.
On a last note: I noticed in the end credits you thanked Alfonso Cuarón. Why was that?
Yes he liked the film a lot. There were many people I thanked, like Agnieszka Holland. These are friends I can show my work to. They protect me against critics and festivals. This group of friends can also be nasty, but they are honest friends.
Thank you so much Pawel for your insights. I look forward to meeting you again “on the circuit”.
To my readers, here are the nuts and bolts of the film:
Music Box Films is the proud U.S. distributor of "Ida," the award-winning film written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Ida world premiered at Telluride 2013 and Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Fipresci Award for Best Film; then played the London Film Festival where it won Best Film, and was the Grand Prix winner at the Warsaw Film Festival. It played as an Official Selection in the 2014 Sundance and New York Jewish Film Festivals.
Poland 1962. Anna (newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska) is a beautiful eighteen-year-old woman, preparing to become a nun at the convent where she has lived since orphaned as a child. She learns she has a living relative she must visit before taking her vows, her mother’s sister Wanda. Her aunt, she learns, is not only a former hard-line Communist state prosecutor notorious for sentencing priests and others to death, but also a Jew. Anna learns from her aunt that she too is Jewish - and that her real name is Ida. This revelation sets Anna, now Ida, on a journey to uncover her roots and confront the truth about her family. Together, the two women embark on a voyage of discovery of each other and their past. Ida has to choose between her birth identity and the religion that saved her from the massacres of the Nazi occupation of Poland. And Wanda must confront decisions she made during the War when she chose loyalty to the cause before family.
Following his breakthrough films "Last Resort" and BAFTA-award winning "My Summer of Love," "Ida" marks Polish-born, British writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski's first film set in his homeland. Ida stars Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza. It will open in Los Angeles on May 2 at the Laemmle's Royal. (Music Box Films, 80 minutes, unrated).
Its international producers, Eric Abraham (Portobello Pictures), Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film), Piotr Dzieciol (Opus Film) and coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum of Denmark sold about 30 territories in Toronto and to date it has sold to 43 territories where the film has opened.
Argentina - Cdi Films, Australia - Curious Film, Austria - Polyfilm is still playing it and to date it has grossed Us$10,733. Benelux – Cineart where it is also still playing and has grossed Us$185,026 in Belgium and Us$131,247 in The Netherlands, Canada – Eyesteelfilm and Films We Like, Czech Republic – Aerofilms, Denmark - Camera Film, Denmark - Portobello Film Sales, France - Memento Films Distribution where in three weeks it grossed $3,192,706, Germany - Arsenal and Maxmedien where it grossed $24,010, Greece - Strada Films, Hungary - Mozinet Ltd., Israel - Lev Films (Shani Films), Italy - Parthenos where it grossed $681,460., Norway – Arthaus grossed $59,920, Poland – Soloban where it grossed $333,714, Portugal - Midas Filmes, Spain - Caramel Films is still playing it and to date it has grossed $408,085, Sweden - Folkets Bio, Switzerland - Frenetic, Taiwan - Andrews Film Co. Ltd, U.K. - Artificial Eye and Curzon, U.S. – Music Box and Film Forum.
Production
(Poland) An Opus Film, Phoenix Film production in association with Portobello Pictures in coproduction with Canal Plus Poland, Phoenix Film Poland. (International sales: Fandango Portobello, Copenhagen.) Produced by Eric Abraham, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa Puszczynska. Coproducer, Christian Falkenberg Husum.
Crew
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Screenplay, Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Camera (B&W), Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski; editor, Jaroslaw Kaminski; production designers, Katarzyna Sobanska, Marcel Slawinski; costume designer, Aleksandra Staszko; Kristian Selin Eidnes Andersen; supervising sound editor, Claus Lynge; re-recording mixers, Lynge, Andreas Kongsgaard; visual effects, Stage 2; line producer, Magdalena Malisz; associate producer, Sofie Wanting Hassing.
With
Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik, Joanna Kulig.
- 1/8/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Ida director Pawel Pawlikowski on Jean-Luc Godard: "Some of the freedom I took with the continuity, which is trying to shoot the film in tableaux…" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard hosted a reception and screening at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York of Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, which stars Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza and Dawid Ogrodnik. As Jake Gyllenhaal scrambled off, I spoke with Pawel about the freedom Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie, starring Anna Karina, gave him; Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue; Odysseus; Milos Forman's Loves Of A Blonde and Fireman's Ball; fairytales with Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne and Yoko Ono; Paul Celan's Fugue Of Death, until we ended with the tale of Winnie the Pooh.
Ida is the funereal journey of two women, told in stark black and white tableaux, set in 1960s Poland. Anna, brought up in a convent...
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard hosted a reception and screening at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York of Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, which stars Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza and Dawid Ogrodnik. As Jake Gyllenhaal scrambled off, I spoke with Pawel about the freedom Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie, starring Anna Karina, gave him; Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue; Odysseus; Milos Forman's Loves Of A Blonde and Fireman's Ball; fairytales with Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne and Yoko Ono; Paul Celan's Fugue Of Death, until we ended with the tale of Winnie the Pooh.
Ida is the funereal journey of two women, told in stark black and white tableaux, set in 1960s Poland. Anna, brought up in a convent...
- 11/23/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Bill Hader has come a long way since his stint on Saturday Night Live, creating many popular characters and impersonations such as Stefon, Vincent Price and CNN’s Jack Cafferty. He is one of the highlights in such films as Adventureland, Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express, and so it is easy to see why author Mike Sacks interviewed him for his new book Poking A Dead Frog. In it, Hader talks about his career and he also lists 200 essential movies every comedy writer should see. Xo Jane recently published the list for those of us who haven’t had a chance to read the book yet. There are a ton of great recommendations and plenty I haven’t yet seen, but sadly my favourite comedy of all time isn’t mentioned. That would be Some Like It Hot. Still, it really is a great list with a mix of old and new.
- 8/28/2014
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Paul Feig went from creating ’90s cult favorite Freaks and Geeks to directing 2011′s comedy hit Bridesmaids, but between those, he directed 2003′s little-known drama I Am David – which he’s still proud of to this day. See what the director had to say about that film, along with his other picks for favorite underrated movies:
Loves of a Blonde
“This first feature film from Amadeus director Milos Forman is the funny and bittersweet tale of a pretty teenage girl living in Communist Czechoslovakia trying desperately to find anything to lift her out of her bleak everyday life. Filled with funny,...
Loves of a Blonde
“This first feature film from Amadeus director Milos Forman is the funny and bittersweet tale of a pretty teenage girl living in Communist Czechoslovakia trying desperately to find anything to lift her out of her bleak everyday life. Filled with funny,...
- 3/14/2014
- by EW staff
- EW - Inside Movies
The French New Wave was not the only new wave of the 1960s: during a temporary loosening of the Communist regime’s hold on culture, Czechoslovakia had its own new wave that produced films just as beautiful, witty, exciting, innovative and thought-provoking as the French. The 1960s saw two Czechoslovak winners of the foreign language Oscar: The Shop on Main Street in 1965 and Closely Observed Trains in 1967. Like the French New Wave filmmakers, Czech New Wave directors such as Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová and Jan Němec were well-versed in film history. Although Communism had restricted their access to more recent international trends in film, philosophy, politics, art and literature, during the 1960s Czechoslovak students, artists and intellectuals had greater access to contemporary movements and ideas and embraced them enthusiastically. The country was also able to reconnect with its own artistic and cultural past, formerly repressed by Communism: one major example is the work of Kafka,...
- 2/26/2013
- by Alison Frank
- The Moving Arts Journal
Milos Forman will receive the top film honor bestowed by the Directors Guild of America, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Motion Picture Direction, DGA president Taylor Hackford announced on Wednesday. The Czech-born Forman's films include "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus," both of which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, as well as DGA Awards for feature-film directing. Other films from Forman's five-decade career include "The People Vs. Larry Flynt," "Valmont," "Loves of a Blonde" and "Taking Off." "No matter what subject or genre he...
- 11/28/2012
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Even as he turns 75 today, Ken Loach carries on working. The BBC spotted him just the other day shooting in a Scottish distillery; his next project, The Angels' Share, is evidently "about a troublemaker given one last chance to stay out of jail and stars newcomer Paul Brannigan, 24, from Glasgow."
In the clip above, Loach recalls taking Kes to Critics' Week in Cannes in 1970; the video is one of several you can see in the Garage, presented as part of our celebration of the 50th anniversary of La Semaine de la Critique. Mike Robins in Senses of Cinema: "The dark and moving story of a Barnsley boy who trains a kestrel in order to escape his problems of family and school remains a gripping masterpiece. Kes also signals a key advance in Loach’s stylistic development. Eschewing the handheld camera, jump cuts, and abrupt sound cues characteristic of the BBC films,...
In the clip above, Loach recalls taking Kes to Critics' Week in Cannes in 1970; the video is one of several you can see in the Garage, presented as part of our celebration of the 50th anniversary of La Semaine de la Critique. Mike Robins in Senses of Cinema: "The dark and moving story of a Barnsley boy who trains a kestrel in order to escape his problems of family and school remains a gripping masterpiece. Kes also signals a key advance in Loach’s stylistic development. Eschewing the handheld camera, jump cuts, and abrupt sound cues characteristic of the BBC films,...
- 6/17/2011
- MUBI
One more reason to be super jealous of our friends in Austin, the announcement of the Paramount’s Summer Classic Film Series 2011 would make any classic film lover think they had died and gone to heaven. Celebrating 36 years and going strong, the place to be during the summer is Austin (as usual). And of course, when there’s classic films being announced at a repertory theater, there’s always a few Criterion connections.
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
- 5/13/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
In this age of disgusting financial misdeeds, it's good to remember the roots of the art of big-time financial cons. So tip your hat to turn of the century shitbag Charles Ponzi, who refined a fraudulent scheme of creating the illusion of short-term gains by leveraging new investment to pay off other investors. He didn't invent the con, but perpetrated it on a scale that was previously unheard of. The Ponzi scheme is basically a trademark financial con, and is the root of the scamming that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. Bernie Madoff ran basically the largest Ponzi Scheme ever, bilking people out of $21 billion. And now Milos Forman, whose career has been seemingly close to dormant for a decade (though he's never been the most prolific director, with three major films in the '80s and two in the '90s) is going to direct a film about Charles Ponzi.
- 4/27/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
It's been quite a while since we last heard from legendary director Milos Forman. His last effort was the not-so-well received "Goya's Ghosts" way back in 2006 but it looks like the man behind "One Flew Over's The Cuckoo's Next," "Loves Of A Blonde," and "Amadeus" isn't done yet and pushing eighty years old, he's still looking to make another run behind the camera, with an interesting take on the financial crisis dramas that seems to be pouring out of Hollywood. Variety reports that Forman is in talks to chronicle the original scumbag con artist, Charles Ponzi, whose name now…...
- 4/27/2011
- The Playlist
Slamdance 2011 is in full swing and here at Sound on Sight we’ll be interviewing filmmakers from the festival all week. Director Laurel Parmet shared with us some of her experiences in making her beautiful film, Pampeliška. The short film, which screened at Slamdance on Saturday January 22nd, and will play again at the festival on Tuesday January 25th, was a project Parmet undertook while studying film in Prague. Read about what it was like filming in a foreign country in a foreign language, and about how an image from her mind of two girls crossing a crumbling bridge on the outskirts of the city was the seed for the entire film.
Synopsis: Eleven year old Klara runs away from home after a fight with her abusive father and spends the day with her best friend Lucie. Their relationship, however, is tested when Klara cannot forget the realities of her life at home.
Synopsis: Eleven year old Klara runs away from home after a fight with her abusive father and spends the day with her best friend Lucie. Their relationship, however, is tested when Klara cannot forget the realities of her life at home.
- 1/23/2011
- by Alice gray
- SoundOnSight
DVD Links: DVD News | Release Dates | New Dvds | Reviews | RSS Feed
Pirate Radio Now this is a decent film, but it's decent in the way that I would say rent, don't buy it. Perhaps it will strike some folks as funny enough to own, but for me it was a one and done. You can read my "B+" theatrical review here. Essential Art House: 8 1/2 Criterion is releasing several more films to their "Essential Art House" collection and the chance to tell you Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 can be purchased for only $14.99 must be brought up. I absolutely love this film, it's a personal all-time favorite and if you want a bit of further explanation you can read my review of Criterion's Blu-ray release from this past January right here, though remember, the "Essential Art House" releases come without any special features whatsoever.
Other films added to the collection this week, and...
Pirate Radio Now this is a decent film, but it's decent in the way that I would say rent, don't buy it. Perhaps it will strike some folks as funny enough to own, but for me it was a one and done. You can read my "B+" theatrical review here. Essential Art House: 8 1/2 Criterion is releasing several more films to their "Essential Art House" collection and the chance to tell you Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 can be purchased for only $14.99 must be brought up. I absolutely love this film, it's a personal all-time favorite and if you want a bit of further explanation you can read my review of Criterion's Blu-ray release from this past January right here, though remember, the "Essential Art House" releases come without any special features whatsoever.
Other films added to the collection this week, and...
- 4/13/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Over the past several weeks, the concept of “double dipping” has been brought to a heated point amongst DVD and Blu-ray collectors and enthusiasts. Double-dipping refers to the practice that many home media distributors use when re-releasing titles, either with new materials, packaging, or on a new format. This has been done for years by almost every studio, and is hotly debated by fans who feel the internal struggle of wanting to please the completist within, while at the same time not wanting to be taken advantage of by those seeking to milk a property as long as possible.
Last week we saw the long awaited Blu-ray release of the Lord of the Rings, a set that people have longed for ever since the high definition formats were announced. I know that personally, while the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format wars were still going on, the prospect of having Lord of...
Last week we saw the long awaited Blu-ray release of the Lord of the Rings, a set that people have longed for ever since the high definition formats were announced. I know that personally, while the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format wars were still going on, the prospect of having Lord of...
- 4/13/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
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.