Ioncinema

Making huge waves with his nickel and dime debut in 2022’s Skinamarink, Canadian filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball will have the backing of A24 and some key players in the indie production sphere for a sophomore feature going by the title of The Land of Nod. For now the project is under wraps, and no casting announcements have been made but the pool of producers includes Central Pictures’ Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush and Josh Safdie, SpectreVision’s Lawrence Inglee, Daniel Noah and Elijah Wood with Tatiana Bears and Bruno Vernaschi Berman. Theo Vieljeux will executive produce. Will the minimalist visuals and heavy atmospherics carry over onto this next project is the big question.… Read the rest

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Athina Rachel Tsangari‘s The Harvest is still touring the film festival circuit which began with a competition slot at Venice Film Festival followed by showcases at TIFF, NYFF, Busan, BFI London and some recent additional stateside screenings at Chicago and the AFI Fest just yesterday. And though she typically keeps her upcoming film projects under wraps, she did provide some crumbs about what might be her next feature film – and it’ll feature an American actress who the filmmaker has admired and has been out of the game for a while now. So we should not be shocked if one day an obscure name or an Eva Mendez, Bridget Fonda, Mira Sorvino or Phoebe Cates type comes out of retirement to sign up with the Greek-American filmmaker.… Read the rest

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Alicia Vikander, Victoria Pedretti and Wagner Moura have been confirmed as the trio of thesps on a new Killer Films project from a new filmmaker that just completed shooting this month. Rachel Rose‘s directorial debut The Last Day is said to be a project loosely adapted from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway typically centers around themes of memory, time, and the complexity of inner lives. A festival release will likely occur for this micro indie in the fall of next year or perhaps try for Sundance 2026. Lucie Elwes, Rose, Mason Plotts, Killer Films’ Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon, Kaplan Morrison’s David Kaplan are producing.… Read the rest

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The 21st edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival is set to run from November 29th to December 7th and a highlight of the event is the Atlas Workshops, which, in just seven years, has evolved into a vital platform for fostering the next generation of Moroccan, Arab, and African filmmakers, many of whom have since premiered at A-list film fests such as Berlin, Cannes and Venice. This year, filmmaker Jeff Nichols from Little Rock, Arkansas, takes on the role of patron, sharing his expertise and career trajectory experiences with participants. Of the 27 selected projects selected this year we have a split of 17 projects in development and 10 films in production or post-production from 13 countries across the African continent and the Arab world.… Read the rest

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Plunder Years: Diop Reflects on the Complex Realities of Reparation

The spirit of Ozymandias, the classic poem from Percy Bysshe Shelley, might rouse itself in one’s mind during Mati Diop’s short but passionate documentary Dahomey – “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Detailing the return of twenty-six artifacts from France to the Republic of Benin, which were among thousands plundered from the Kingdom of Dahomey by French colonialist troops in 1892, it’s a depiction of a journey with so much more going on beneath the surface than an exchange of cultural artifacts. Utilizing some effectively poetic and fantastical elements herself, Diop attempts to give voice to the past and marry it to the voices of the present, where it’s impossible to divorce oneself from the wreckage wrought by colonialism.… Read the rest

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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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