Ioncinema

Savory wine, blissful beaches, rugged topography, and an elusive Philippe Katerine who plays Jean-Philippe — we’ve been keeping close tabs on what will be the middle part in Sophie Letourneur‘s proposed vaca-trilogy. Now comes word that (via the Cineuropa folks) that the project will be known as L’Aventura — a wordplay on Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterwork (perhaps one of the main players will disappear here too). Casting is complete (perhaps we’ll get a surprise appearance), and Letourneur will be re-teaming with cinematopgrapher Jonathan Ricquebourg (he was onboard for Voyages en Italie and more recently The Taste of Things) and the bigger news is that the producing team to come onboard are Atelier de Production’s Thomas and Mathieu Verhaeghe – who mostly produced a string of Quentin Dupieux films and other recent fest faves in Puan (last year’s San Sebastian Film Festival) and Dog on Trial and Eat the Night (both featured at this year’s Cannes Film Festival).… Read the rest

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Filming is imminent for Lynne Ramsay‘s highly anticipated fifth feature, and we just learned that a key creative member in cinematographer Seamus McGarvey from the We Need to Talk About Kevin team will reunite with the Scottish filmmaker with pre-production currently unfolding in Calgary, Alberta. McGarvey recently reteamed with Joe Wright for Cyrano and the next item we might see is in Angelina Jolie’s long-delayed Without Blood. Based on the book by Ariana Harwicz, co-written by Ramsay and Enda Walsh, Die, My Loveis described as a horror dramedy and takes place in a remote forgotten rural area, where a mother (Jennifer Lawrence) struggles to maintain her sanity as she battles with psychosis.… Read the rest

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Yann Mounir Demange quite literally blasted onto the scene back in 2014 with his feature debut about a stranded British soldier (Jack O’Connell) with nowhere to hide, but to move forward in a hostile Belfast circa 1971 (hence the provenance of the film’s title ’71). Born in Paris to a French mother and an Algerian father, the filmmaker would establish himself in the British film scene before Hollywood came knocking and yet we feel that it’s with his short, Dammi where we find the filmmaker at his most personal. Launched at 2023 Locarno Film Festival (with a trip to TIFF shortly after), this professional palette cleanser (before he sets off to make Blade) brings him back to his roots, and this is mostly due to a creative partnership formed with Rosa Attab (producer on Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here).… Read the rest

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A film project delayed due to the pandemic, that was pushed back slightly and then leapfrogged when she shot and premiered SXSW title Soft & Quiet, it’s been confirmed that Beth de Araújo is currently in post-production (and probably gunning for a 2025 Sundance 2025 berth) with her sophomore feature. It’s been confirmed that Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan toplined Josephine — production took place this past April in San Francisco. One of our favorites in Philip Ettinger and Syra McCarthy also star while the centerpiece role belongs to newbie Mason Lily Reeves. Animal Kingdom’s David Kaplan (It Follows, It Comes at Night and more recently, executive producer on The Sweet East) is producing alongside Araújo.… Read the rest

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We have the first details on the next feature films from a pair of French auteurs who arguably are both coming off what might be their career bests. Xavier Giannoli (2021’s Lost Illusions) and Rebecca Zlotowski (2022’s Other People’s Children) will likely be moving into film productions as early as this year with the Cineuropa folks reporting that their latest features have received CNC advance coin. Giannoli’s next feature Jean et Corinne Luchaire (produced by Curiosa Films) is based on real-life events and revolves around a father and daughter who collaborated with the Germans in the Second World War: the journalist and press baron Jean Luchaire, who fled Sigmaringen upon France’s liberation and was later sentenced to death and executed in 1946, and his daughter Corinne, who was an up-and-coming actress between 1935 and 1940 before she was forced to halt her career for health reasons, who was briefly married to a German officer, who fled alongside her father having now become his secretary, and who was sentenced to ten years’ national indignity.… Read the rest

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It has to be among the best open-air public spaces at any festival to premiere a film and it also counts as a safe space for some world premiere screenings. Included in the Piazza Grande section, the folks that fill up the 8,000 seats will find a mix of world premieres, Swiss preems and so polished-off older films. Sundance preemed Gaucho Gaucho by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw will be nice to take in in the great outdoors and so will Tarsem Singh‘s The Fall (Restored Cut). On the world premieres side Simon Jaquemet‘s Electric Child in finally complete – filmed in October 2022 this is about a couple whose child develops an unusual illness.… Read the rest

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Former Pardo d’Oro champs Hong Sangsoo (Right Now, Wrong Then – 2015) and Wang Bing (Mrs. Fang – 2017) will be measuring up against a large swath of Euro films in the prestigious competition section at Locarno next month. Hong Sangsoo reteams with his usual players for By the Stream, while Wang Bing continues with docu film series that begin in Cannes with Youth (Spring) (2023) and continues with Youth (Hards Times). Among the items we have been tracking for a while now that were lassoed for the Concorso Internazionale section we find Virgil Vernier returning to the fest with Cent Mille Milliards (formerly known as Century Island, 100,000 Light-Years) – a project that was filmed in Monaco with Zakaria Bouti, Victoire Kong, Mina Gajovic.… Read the rest

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After the first sextet of titles released back in the middle of June, the Toronto International Film Festival are throwing us another fivesome of film items that come stamped with the World Premiere status stamp with We Live in Time by John Crowley (of Brooklyn ’15 and The Goldfinch ’19 fame) being the potential awards-chatter contender of the group. Starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, this is about as a couple whose chance encounter changes their lives as they fall in love, build a home, start a family, and face difficult truths. A film that might duel with Matthew Rankin’s Cannes hit to represent Canada at the Oscars will be Shepherds.… Read the rest

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Sundance has Sebastian Silva. Cannes has the Dardenne Bros. And at this point, we can call him a VIP guest at Toronto Intl. Film Festival as David Gordon Green will open the 49th edition of the festival with Nutcrackers – a dramedy about a workaholic, Mike (Ben Stiller) who has to travel to rural Ohio to look after his recently orphaned nephews. Gordon Green has shored up at the fest with the likes of  everything from George Washington (2000), All the Real Girls (2003), Undertow (2004) and Snow Angels (2007) to Stronger (2017), and most recently, Halloween (2018). For us, this is a welcome return to working in a genre that is not popcorn studio horror projects.… Read the rest

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