Ioncinema

Reserved for debut and sophomore films from emerging filmmakers, this year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery programme consists of two dozen feature films and it’ll include some noteworthy items beginning with the film that opens the section in Canadian writer-turned filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose‘s directorial debut Bonjour Tristesse – the book to film adaptation that follows Cécile (Lily McInerny), a young woman spending the summer in a villa in the south of France with her widowed father Raymond (Claes Bang) and his latest love interest, Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune). The spicy addition here might be in the character of the late mother’s friend Anne – played by Chloë Sevigny.… Read the rest

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Last year the likes of Nara Normande and Tião (Venice 2023 selected Sem Coração) and Mo Harawe’s (Cannes 2024 selected The Village next to Paradise) received coin for their feature film projects. Coming from countries such as Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Lesotho, Nepal and Sudan, this year’s batch of ten Berlinale World Cinema Fund seelected projects include the latest from Lisandro Alonso – a new “sequel” project that we reported on last April. La Libertad doble will see Alonso revisit the protagonist (as well as the filmmaking methods) he employed for his 2001 Un Certain Regard selected La Libertad.… Read the rest

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Named after the influential film Platform (2000) by the great “Sixth Generation” master filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, it’ll soon be a decade since TIFF introduced the Platform section – the fest’s only competition section meant to promote innovative and bold type cinema and comes with a cash award but unfortunately no trophy. Previous winners include Pablo Larraín, Pietro Marcello, Anthony Shim and last year it was Tarsem who won for Dear Jassi (we were there). This year’s batch of ten has a handful of familiar names in Mexico’s Rodrigo Prieto and Spain’s Nacho Vigalondo and Carlos Marqués-Marcet.

Prieto’s Pedro Paramo is the cinematographer directorial debut.… Read the rest

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21 films were selected for the 2024 Venice Film Festival competition and in the pack we find some surprises and several shoe-ins for the 81st edition (August 28th until September 7th). We will of course be there for wall-to-wall coverage. The big surprise title among the pack of the seven English language film has to be Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn‘s third feature film Babygirl — an A24 project starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde and Jean Reno and was shot this past December. The Bodies Bodies Bodies helmer looks at power dynamics and sexuality in the workplace.… Read the rest

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21 films were selected for the 2024 Venice Film Festival competition and in the pack we find some surprises and several shoe-ins for the 81st edition (August 28th until September 7th). We will of course be there for wall-to-wall coverage. The big surprise title among the pack of the seven English language film has to be Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn‘s third feature film Babygirl — an A24 project starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde and Jean Reno and was shot this past December. The Bodies Bodies Bodies helmer looks at power dynamics and sexuality in the workplace.… Read the rest

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While we might still be on the fence about what is being described as a first-person shooter-type experience in Harmony Korine‘s Baby Invasion, but the Venice Film Festival’s Out of Competition section lineup could be just as daring as the films selected for the competition. We have established filmmakers giving another go at it from Pupi Avati‘s gothic-friendly L’Orto Americano to Claude Lelouch‘s latest feature which caps off a trilogy in Finalement, and then we have a burst of Asian cinema auteurs from Kurosawa Kiyoshi in Cloud to a just over one hour narrative from Takeshi Kitano in Broken Rage to Lav Diaz once again testing our patience with the over four hour journey in Phantosmia.… Read the rest

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The Un Certain Regard section in Venice, recent winners of the Horizons (Orizzonti) section include Gábor Reisz’s Explanation for Everything, Houman Seyyedi’s World War III and Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis. Some of the standouts in the selection of nineteen films include Alexandros Avranas‘ Quiet Life – a fascinating portrait about asylum-seekers who fled to Sweden and some crazy syndrome that see their children fall into a coma-type called Resignation Syndrome or Apathy, explained as a self-protection against a feeling of fear. Avranas won the Silver Lion for Best Director for Miss Violence in 2013 and this latest oeuvre is produced by Films du Worso’s Sylvie Pialat.… Read the rest

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The 49th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival has unveiled its Gala and Special Presentations programs and now have have confirmations not only for what will play at TIFF, but will shore up in Venice and Telluride. The two biggest eyebrow-raisers have to be Joshua Oppenheimer‘s The End and Michael Gracey‘s Better Man (yes, the Robbie Williams biopic starring himself) – both films will be zig-zagging from Venice to Telluride and then Toronto. Following a flightpath from Cannes to Toronto by way of Telluride, we have the Sean Baker‘s Anora, Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light and Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Pérez all pushing onwards into awards season.… Read the rest

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London BFI have Steve McQueen’s Blitz and San Sebastian Film Festival tied up Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, we now have the NYFF folks pitching their tent naming RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys as Opening Night Film. This is not the film’s world premiere lieu so we figure Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios have either Telluride or Venice or both in their sights. This week should be a lot of fun with the TIFF folks just now dropping some big titles shortly before Venice announces their selections tomorrow. Long understood as a top contender in the Oscar race, the adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.… Read the rest

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While tomorrow is the big daddy of announcements for the fall film festival season, this morning, we learn the identity of the nine feature films that will populate the Settimana Internazionale della Critica section which, much like the Critics’ Week at the Cannes is dedicated to features from first-time filmmakers. In the seven competition film items we have the likes of Bernhard Wenger, Alexandra Simpson and Muhammed Hamdy, while the opening and closing films were items we’ve been tracking for some time now. Planète B. by French filmmaker Aude Léa Rapin is the only sophomore feature in the section — production took place in March of last year with the likes of Adele Exarchopoulos, Souheila Yacoub and India Hair.… Read the rest

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