Ioncinema

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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Following a standout 2023 edition, where critically acclaimed films like India Donaldson’s Good One premiered at Sundance and Cannes, and Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch swept three major awards in Venice, the U.S. in Progress team in Wrocław continues to elevate American indie cinema on the global stage. The fourteenth edition of the U.S. in Progress co-production forum will take place from November 7-9, 2024, as part of the fifteenth American Film Festival in Wrocław, Poland. Among the eight selected projects are new works by filmmakers such as Amanda Kramer (Please Baby Please), Pete Ohs (Jethica), and Mark Webber (The Place of No Words), who will profile their projects alongside films from emerging first-time directors including Under the Lights by Miles Levin with the backing of the Vanishing Angle folks.… Read the rest

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When it came to American indie offering on the Croisette this year it is Anora and a pair of films in the Quinzaine section in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point and Eephus that grabbed most of the attention — but there was a micro film showcased in the Critics’ Week section that really stood out – and now that film will receive theatrical release support via the Dekanalog folks. Deadline reports that Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace has been picked up. No mention as to when the film will drop, but we imagine it’ll be more film festival play before a likely early 2025 release.… Read the rest

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Blue Marks by German filmmaker Sarah Miro Fischer and The Two Landscapes by Argentinian filmmaker (and recent Berlinale Golden Bear winner) Francisco Lezama have each won two awards in the industry competition sidebar at San Sebastian. Uruguayan-Argnetina based actor turned filmmaker Daniel Hendler picked up coin for A Loose End – his sophomore feature looks at Santiago, a low-ranking policeman, who arrives in Fray Bentos, a small town just across the Uruguay border from Argentina, escaping from the Argentine police force. Penniless but with enough cunning and using his threadbare uniform, he overcomes obstacles, receives the help of local characters, aims to erase all traces of his past and even dreams of finding the possible love of his life.… Read the rest

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The first batch of titles were announced in August, and now with Locarno and Venice firming up the selection process, we now have our second wave of films. Sixteen feature films (nominations of the European Film Awards will be revealed on 5 November) have been added and we find the likes of Venice competition winners in Pedro Almodóvar, Maura Delpero and Dea Kulumbegashvili, Orizzonti section winner Bogdan Mureşanu, Locarno Golden Leopard winner by Saulė Bliuvaitė and Toronto preemed Hard Truths by master filmmaker Mike Leigh.

APRIL directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili (Georgia, France, Italy)
CONCLAVE directed by Edward Berger (UK, USA)
HARD TRUTHS directed by Mike Leigh (UK, Spain)
HARVEST directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (UK, Germany, Greece, France, USA)
MISERICORDIA directed by Emma Dante (Italy)
MOON directed by Kurdwin Ayub (Austria)
MR.… Read the rest

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Confirming what we had reported back in April, Variety confirms that Lisandro Alonso‘s next project will indeed be him revisiting the film character we first visited back in 2001’s La libertad. La libertad doble is being mounted by Alonso’s 4L, Fortuna Films’ Ilse Hughan, Planta’s Fernando Bascuñán and Deptford Film’s Augusto Matte. Co-producers include The Match Factory and Les Films. Production is planned for early 2025 – so we are looking at a probable 2026 drop.

This follows Misael (Misael Saavedra) who, some 25 years later, continues to live alone, wielding his axe to fell trees deep in the forest, far from the presence of others.… Read the rest

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