Ioncinema

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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The full line-up will be unveiled on Tuesday, but we got a little Lido appetizer pair this morning. Opening the Horizons (aka Orrizonti) section it is Italian cinema that will be profiled with Valerio Mastandrea‘s Nonostante launching festivities. With about three decades under his belt as an actor, Mastandrea moved into feature filmmaking with Laughing (2018) – Torino Film Festival selection. Here is the synopsis:

A man spends peacefully his days in hospital without too many worries. He has been hospitalized for a while but that condition seems like the best way to live his life, safe from everything and everyone, without responsibilities and problems of any kind.… Read the rest

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The first feature films of the 2024 Venice Film Festival lineup have been unveiled through the Giornate Degli Autori section. Artistic Director Gaia Furrer’s programming team has selected sixteen films—ten competition titles and six special screenings—excluding the Venetian Nights section for Italian cinema. No surprises here – most of these films were not on our radar. A docu-filmmaker who has been on the Lido for her last two features, Federica Di Giacomo follows 2016’s Deliver Us (Winner of the Orizzonti Award) and 2021’s Il palazzo (also a Giornate Degli Autori selecrtion) with opening film of the section in The Open Couple.… Read the rest

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Pedro Paramo
Dir. Rodrigo Prieto
Prod: Rafael Ley, Stacy Perskie, Francisco Ramos

A Netflix backed project that went into production in March of last year, Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto moved into his feature directorial debut with a film that follows a dusty road to a town of death. Pedro Paramo is about time shifts from one consciousness to another in a hypnotic flow of dreams, desires, and memories, a world of ghosts dominated by the figure of Pedro Páramo lover, overlord, murderer. Manuel García-Rulfo and Tenoch Huerta topline. We see this grabbing the closing film spot a la last year’s Society of the Snow.… Read the rest

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Joker: Folie a Deux
Dir. Todd Phillips
Prod: Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joseph Garner

It would be kind of neat if the head jury person of the 2019 Venice Film Festival who feted Todd Phillips by bestowing the the Golden Lion for Joker would somehow face off in competition with her docu. After having seen the trailer flaunting the acting (plus singing) chops of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, this studio film has a legit shot at a second Lion. Along with Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Zazie Beetz, this takes us back to the moment after the murder of Murray Franklin live on television.… Read the rest

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So here we are. The programming teams headed by Artistic Directors Gaia Furrer (Giornate degli Autori), Beatrice Fiorentino (Settimana Internazionale della Critica) and Alberto Barbera (Cinema Department of La Biennale di Venezia) have viewed thousands of hours of cinema and are getting ready to drop their line-ups. This Friday we find out the selections for the Giornate degli Autori, next Monday the Venice International Critics’ Week unveils their line-up and on the second Xmas morning of the year (Tuesday) we find out which films are competing for the Golden Lion. As usual, we have compiled a list of predictions that cover all sections, based on a combination of insider information, validation from other sources, and educated guesses here they are.… Read the rest

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