Ioncinema

Six years after transitioning from film criticism, programming and docu features to narrative with Diane (2018), Kent Jones is gearing up for his sophomore project. Titled Late Fame, it was announced just prior to Cannes with Sandra Hüller onboard, however, Past Lives Greta Lee has replaced her and will now joining Willem Dafoe. This should be another fascinating character study – as the drama was penned by Samy Burch (Haynes’ May December – read review). Filming was planned for the fall – so this will be packaged and complete for the fall festival season in 2025. Killer Films’ Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon are producing.… Read the rest

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Out of the gate early, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (30 January – 9 February 2025) have unveiled the first wave of titles that make up the upcoming 54th edition with a baker’s dozen titles populating the Bright Future and Harbour sections. The complete programme will be launched on the December 17th – a couple of weeks after Sundance unveil their edition.

BRIGHT FUTURE

1 GIRL INFINITE (World Premiere)
Director: Lilly Hu
United States, Latvia, Singapore
Two teenage girls, Yin Jia and Tong Tong, live together in this colour-drenched vision of Changsha, China. When Tong Tong drifts away and falls in with a drug dealer, Yin Jia’s love for her means she’ll risk everything to keep Tong Tong by her side.… Read the rest

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Soap Kitchen: Ruizpalacios Underwhelms & Over Bakes Food Drama

Making his English language debut with fourth feature La Cocina, based on the notable stage play by Arnold Wesker, Alonso Ruizpalacios presents an absurd, impulsive microcosm of oft invisible experiences. Taking place behind-the-scenes in what appears to be a mediocre tourist mainstay in Times Square (set in an era before cellphones), a teeming community of workers tossed together like a makeshift family goes about the daily grind. As circumstances dictate, the focus is one particularly grueling lunch shift in which various coinciding dilemmas come to a show stopping head.

Much like his exceptional 2018 title Museo, Ruizpalacios gravitates towards the power of process, drifting into tangentiality of the narrative to collect the milk of human experiences.… Read the rest

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As a filmmaker, you always want to have irons in the fire. So after an earlier in the year mention of making a Nat King Cole biopic the subject of his directorial debut, we now learn that Colman Domingo will move onto the real life love affair between film star Kim Novak and singer/dancer and film star Sammy Davis Jr. circa 1957. Sydney Sweeney and David Jonsson topline the project. Deadline breaks the news that Miramax has been fast-tracking Scandalous to time it when Domingo and Sweeney complete Season 3 of the HBO series Euphoria. Sweeney produces with Tani Cohen and Bobby Roth.… Read the rest

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Late last week the Music Box Films people made a pick-up for a remarkable debut feature that kicked off last May’s Critics’ Week section in Cannes – a gem that I called “unhurried and in protracted process bliss, tonally enthralling and buoyantly evasive, revenge here is served … slow.” Jonathan Millet’s revenge thriller Ghost Trail (aka Les Fantômes) will receive a theatrical release next Spring. This is easily Adam Bessa’s career best work to date as an actor. Millet comes from a docu background – and his research is well served here. Films Grand Huit’s Pauline Seigland (Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy) produced the film.… Read the rest

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London Has Fallen: McQueen Explores Life During Wartime

Following his extensively researched 2023 documentary Occupied City, which details WWII atrocities waged against the Dutch during Amsterdam’s Nazi occupation, it would seem Steve McQueen has been motivated to continue his exploration of the period with Blitz, reenacting the catastrophic blitzkrieg (aka ‘lightning war) of Britain during the 1940s. While an ensemble cast of characters intertwine in this saga, McQueen focuses on the separation of a mother and her child, each facing their own unique cultural intersections which were difficult even before the onset of the second world war. There are few contemporary examples of films about the London Blitzkrieg, more often than not a backdrop looming over more intimate human struggles, such as Atonement (2007), Their Finest (2016), or even the rehash of Graham Greene’s swooning The End of the Affair (1999).… Read the rest

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There was a brief delay for the start of the production (originally they were circling a 2023 start), but finally French-Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau did get back into the saddle this past September for his latest which translates to Thousand Secrets, Thousand Dangers. The French-language feature, the Montreal-centric Mille secrets mille dangers has one week left to go in production – so the’ll be aiming to position this as a film fest release perhaps Locarno. Toplining the book to film adaptation we find Neil Elias, Hassan Mahbouba and Rose-Marie Perreault and a noteworthy behind the line part of the team is André Turpin.… Read the rest

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The annual Prix Jean Vigo, typically awarded to a rising French director, recently recognized talents like Sophie Letourneur for Énorme, Axelle Ropert for Petite Solange, and Alice Diop for Saint-Omer. This year, the honor goes to another female filmmaker this time — Louise Courvoisier for her debut film Vingt Dieux (aka Holy Cow), a 2024 Cannes Film Festival selection in the Un Certain Regard section, where it also won the Un Certain Regard Youth Prize. Zeitgeist Films landed the distribution rights and have plans to distribute the film in March of next year. In our review, I mentioned “with a blend of playfulness and sincerity, the film captures the complexities of human desperation, inviting audiences to both admire and despise the multiple missteps – you’ll love to hate him, but miss him if he weren’t there type.”… Read the rest

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Fools Russia In: Baker’s Bangin’ Screwball Comedy

At this point in his career, filmmaker Sean Baker seems to have covered all the major facets of sex work experiences. Surprisingly, and quite delightfully, he’s managed to use his favorite motifs to create an exceptional screwball comedy with Anora. An exotic dancer in New York who moonlights as a sex worker, when it’s convenient, is the titular focus, played with exceptional finesse by Mikey Madison. As we’ve become accustomed to in Baker’s filmography, there’s a lot of heart and grit bolstering the experiences of his characters, who are often confronting themselves through the unlikeliest of emotional alliances.… Read the rest

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French-Canadian filmmaker Anne Émond has begun production into her first foray into English-language cinema (we imagine that this will be a bilingual film) with Adam fka Peak Everything – which has Patrick Hivon (Monia Chokri’s Babysitter) and Piper Perabo toplining. Also onboard in terms of supporting players we find Gilles Renaud, Elizabeth Mageren, Éric K. Boulianne, Connor Jessup and Gord Rand. Metafilms’ Sylvain Corbeil and Immina Films are producing. Production will take place in Montreal and in Ontario. Émond exploded onto the scene with Nuit #1 in 2011 and has stuck to mostly drama formats.

This is about Adam (45) owns a kennel.… Read the rest

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