Ioncinema

Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui (behind the brilliant Sundance Grand Prize-winning short So What If the Goats Die (2020) and the equally mystical supernatural bowl of soup feature in 2023’s Animalia) is among the half dozen invited guests to the Résidence of the Festival de Cannes — essentially the festival sets up burgeoning filmmakers to set up shop at an apartment building in Paris to workshop their latest projects with industry folk.

Other invited folks bunking in the Paris staycay incvlude Australian filmmaker (based in Berlin) Rudolf Fitzgerald-Leonard (who had his short shown in the Directors’ Fortnight), Colombian filmmaker Theo Montoya of Anhell69 fame, Lithuanian filmmaker Eglė Razumaitė whose last short (Ootidé) was in the running for the short film Palme d’Or, India’s Diwa Shah (she had her feature debut at the 2023 San Sebastian Intl.… Read the rest

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Micro-budget American indie filmmaker Pete Ohs really doesn’t miss a beat. When he’s not directing—keeping up a steady pace with Youngstown (2021), Jethica (2022) and Love and Work (2024) — he might be on the editing dock with (e.g. Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.). And when he’s not in those functions, he is serving as a cinematographer — look out for Albert Birney’s OBEX, set to release in 2025. Now comes word that Erupcja (which was recently selected to participate in this year’s U.S.in Progress in Wroclaw) had a bitr more mustard on it. Players include Lena Góra (Roving Woman), Will Madden and two artists now firmly getting into the acting game in playwright Jeremy O.… Read the rest

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A new voice in Belgian cinema emerged earlier this year when the Cannes Critics’ Week section premiered Julie Keeps Quiet – the directorial debut by Leonardo Van Dijl who until that point had worked on docu, shorts and music vids. With some notably filkm fest premieres (namely TIFF) and a major push forward being his country’s Best International Feature Film selection, now Film Movement has landed the U.S. theatrical rights for what will be an early 2025 release. We think this could be among the first wave of films to make it to the final noms. We were at the Critics’ Week world premiere – see below.… Read the rest

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American micro-indie filmmaker Patrick Wang of 2011’s In the Family (read review), The Grief of Others (2015), A Bread Factory (2018) parts I and II, was working under the radar and his latest project – Variety have the full details on his next oeuvre – a unconventional biopic on Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) – who was a French poet who dropped the written word to work as a trader and explorer in Africa. Actor Blake Draper toplines A.Rimbaud. Production just wrapped up in Winnipeg this week.

Hardball Entertainment’s Daryl Freimark, Thin Stuff Productions’ Fritzi Adelman and Evan Johnson (Rumours filmmaker) along with Wang produced the project.… Read the rest

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In an interview with Les Inrocks folks, Apichatpong Weerasethakul revealed that his upcoming project, the tentatively titled The Fountains of Paradise, is unlikely to begin shooting until 2026. The Thai filmmaker shared that he is currently in the process of writing, scouting locations, and essentially discovering the essence of the film in real time — no logline was offered. So we see this as a potential 2027 release. Tilda Swinton, with whom Weerasethakul expressed a desire to collaborate on many future projects, will star in their second film together, set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka.

… Read the rest

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A project initially scheduled for a 2023 shoot has finally been greenlit, with Cineuropa confirming that Meryem Benm’Barek has been filming her sophomore feature since midway point last month. Behind the Palm Trees stars Sara Giraudeau and Driss Ramdi in leading roles, with strong support from Carole Bouquet, Olivier Rabourdin, Rachel O’Meara, and Nadia Kounda. Benm’Barek’s debut feature Sofia was a 2018 Cannes Un Certain Regard selection – winning the Best Screenplay in the section. Production is taking place in Tangier and Benm’Barek has re-teamed with her cinematographer Son Doan. A project was part of the 2022 Atlas Workshops in Marrakech, Tessalit Productions’ Jean Bréhat is producing.… Read the rest

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Good Golly, It’s Dali: Dupieux Dreams Surreal in Distinctive Biopic

It seems surrealism’s pioneer Salvador Dali is experiencing something of a culturally concentric resurgence as a cinematic subject, granted his most appropriately thematic rendering yet in Quentin Dupieux’s Daaaaaali!, the second feature this year from the idiosyncratic director, who is also kinda sorta delivering his first biopic. Arriving shortly after Mary Harron’s shockingly stilted Daliland, featuring Ben Kingsley as the iconic artist, Dupieux formulates his own expectedly original rendering, presenting something more along the lines of Portrait of an Artist as a Difficult Man. Much like Todd Haynes did with Bob Dylan, a revolving door of actors portray Dali, sometimes switching freely in scenes dealing with carefree anachronisms regarding his life and work.… Read the rest

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Perhaps the landmark sophomore feature of 2024, Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili has found a safe space in the U.S. via newish distributor Metrograph Pictures who acquired the North American rights to the Venice Special Jury Prize winner. Hailed as the best film (tied alongside The Brutalist) to come out of Venice by our chief film critic Nicholas Bell who praised (read our 4-star review) April for how it “drifts into stagnation, every visual moment is feeding into the themes of the film, including the multiple escapes into the mercurial nature of spring, rife with blossoming fertility but also presenting a fragile landscape vulnerable to destruction.… Read the rest

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Perennial favorite in American indie cinema, we’ll definitely be getting some Derek Cianfrance cinema in 2025 as production began this week on Roofman. Deadline reports that Kirsten Dunst will play the person who is admired from afar (or from above) in the true-life story of Jeffrey Manchester – who spent months living undetected in a makeshift hideout inside a Toys “R” Us store, where he would sleep and plan further crimes. Channing Tatum takes on the lead role. Cianfrance wrote the project with Kirt Gunn (who has a producer credit in Sound of Metal). Limelight’s Dylan Sellers and Chris Parker produce alongside Jamie Patricof (Hunting Lane) and Lynette Howell Taylor (51 Entertainment).… Read the rest

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ARTE France Cinéma is backing a quartet of projects and among them, we find the new Claire Denis project that she was possibly scouting two years back. Set to star Matt Dillon, Riley Keough and her muse Isaach de Bankolé, Le Cri des Gardes is a play to film adaptation of Combat de nègre et de chiens (Black Battles with Dogs) by playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès (an artist who was among the generation of artists lost to AIDS) who passed away in 1989. The play dealt with issues of fear, dissimulation, lies, the commerce we have with guilt and bad conscience. Denis wrote the screenplay alongside Suzanne Lindon (filmmaker behind Spring Blossom) and Andrew Litvack (High Life and Stars at Noon).… Read the rest

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