Ioncinema

The Marrakech International Film Festival have announced its complete line-up and in the official competition (first and second feature films) film titles we find a handful of Cannes and Venice Film Festival sidebar items most notably Venice’s own Orizzonti section with Neo Sora’s Happyend, Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays and Murat Fıratoğlu’s One of Those Days When Hemme Dies as part of the fourteen films selected in pursuit of the Étoile d’Or. The selection of 70 films is also spread across the Gala Screenings, Special Screenings, the 11th Continent, Moroccan Panorama, Cinema for Young Audiences & Families, and the Tributes program.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Dole Days: Arnold Flutters About with Strange Bedfellows

There’s certainly a definable emotional core in Andrea Arnold’s fifth narrative feature, Bird, but the ideas and themes tying it all together are about as wispy and freewheeling as scattered feathers drifting along the course of a gently idling wind. Once again mixing anthropomorphic inspired motifs with working class realities, Arnold’s new marriage of social miserabilism and magical realism sadly feels a bit exploitative as it rushes through thinly drawn characters and connections before gliding into a pat, feel-good resolution. Whether due to methods of improvisation without a clearly defined script or a rushed edit to make the demands of its world premiere, Arnold’s latest is something of a disappointment, playing as it does so fiercely into the eternally forgiving arena of the sentimental.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

All the Small Things: Mielants Mines the Evils of Complicity

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The oft cited quote from Edmund Burke is the ultimate essence of Small Things Like These, the latest from Belgian director Tim Mielants. Adapted from the 2021 novella by Claire Keegan (who also wrote The Quiet Girl), it’s a subtle exploration of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, torturous institutions run by the Roman Catholic Church intended to house ‘fallen women.’ While many films have explored the dreadful details of this culturally sanctioned terror, Mielants expounds upon Keegan’s prose to highlight the communal complicity which allowed this institutionalization to prosper.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Last Train to Zhili: Bing Brings Youth Cycle to Circular Close

Wang Bing completes his ‘Youth’ trilogy with finale Youth (Homecoming), which features the most forgiving running time of the three segments at only two and a half hours. The Cannes premiered Youth (Spring) (read review) was an hour longer and Youth (Hard Times) (read review), which premiered several weeks earlier at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, clocked in at nearly four hours. The entire project was shot between 2014 to 2019, mostly in China’s Zhili province, home to a multitude of garment workshops. The final chapter appropriately begins with some 2014 footage and ends in 2019, but most of its integral moments transpire at the end of 2015 and into the 2016 Chinese New Year.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Coming off what could be a career-best in Dear Jassi and a recent 4K restoration of the passion project of all passion projects in The Fall, Tarsem Singh is now setting his sights on a thriller project set up by the AGC Studios folks, producer Scott Franklin and with the full participation of Dev Patel who will topline and produce The Journeyman. Variety reports that the crime thriller would move into production next year — so this would fall on our laps in 2026.

Written by Bryan and Alexis Roberts (aka The Roberts), Patel plays a down-on-his-luck tennis pro who is lured into an illegal match-fixing ring to support his family and finds himself trapped in a ruthless world of corruption and violence he may never escape.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Risky Business: Audiard Surprises with Vibrant Genre Musical

Although it’s assembled from unlikely, even questionable sources, Jacques Audiard’s latest feature, Emilia Pérez, a genre and gender blending Mexico City set musical, is surprisingly skilled. Though destined for naysayers who will want to overlook its Almodovarian sense of soap opera (and thus requiring a certain suspense of disbelief), told as it is from the perspective of a director who is three cultural layers removed from its eponymous character, it’s a compelling odyssey of mixed tropes which coalesce into a film not only vigorous but bold. In its own blunt way, the film exemplifies the enhancing power of what musicals can be, when excessive interior emotion can be so heavy, channeling it through song breaks the artifice of traditional boundaries as an alternative way to reach a desired authenticity.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

American indie filmmaker Zachary Wigon (2014’s The Heart Machine and 2022’s Sanctuary) is not wasting time getting back into the saddle — Deadline reports that Wigon will re-team with Margaret Qualley for a book-to-film psychological horror-thriller project titled Victorian Psycho. Production is set to begin in March of next year and is backed by Traffic’s Dan Kagan with Wigon also producing alongside Sebastien Raybaud. Nick Shumaker also re-teams with Wigon as an executive-producer with Bard Dorros.

Based on author Virginia Feito’s upcoming novel, this is set in 1858, the film will follow a young, eccentric governess named Winifred Notty (Qualley) who arrives at the remote gothic manor known as Ensor House.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

The notoriously unpredictable and always confusing Gotham Awards revealed their nominations for the upcoming 34th gala, with Sean Baker’s Anora leading the pack. Anora earned four nominations: Best Feature, Best Director, Outstanding Lead Performance for Mikey Madison, and—perhaps most exciting for the team—Outstanding Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov, who has been on a strong streak this decade with roles in Compartment Number 6, Petrov’s Flu, and Captain Volkonogov Escaped. The Palme d’Or winning film clean up in all three major categories while All We Imagine as Light, Nickel Boys and I Saw the TV Glow are also in the mix with multiple nominations.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Zellner Bros. alumni Riley Keough and other A-listers Dave Bautista, Léa Seydoux, Blink Twice duet Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum have joined Alpha Gang—replacing the original cast lineup of Andrea Riseborough, Jon Hamm, Nicholas Hoult, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mackenzie Davis, and Sofia Boutella. They join Cate Blanchett who joined the project back in April (she also produces) while Steven Yeun is also confirmed – he remains the sole player who was attached to the project which was initially set for a 2021 shoot before the pandemic caused delays – which is how Sasquatch Sunset came into their pipeline. David and Nathan Zellner will move into production in the 1st quarter of 2025, making this a highly sought after acquisitions and film festival item for the 2026 cal.… Read the rest

Continue reading…

Ever since breaking out twice with micro-indie The Midnight Swim and then with Buster’s Mal Heart, filmmaker Sarah Adina Smith has been mixing it up behind the camera working on TV Mini Series (most recently ‘Lessons in Chemistry,’ and feature film (her last was 2022’s The Drop). Her next project has to be her highest profile project in her filmography to date with a top pairing billing and a indie dream team producers backing the project. Deadline reports that Olivia Wilde and Gael García Bernal have boarded Monkey Hill — a psychological thriller that will be offered up at the upcoming American Film Market.… Read the rest

Continue reading…