A History of Unsimulated Sex Scenes in 17 Cannes Films, from ‘Mektoub’ to ‘Antichrist’ to ‘Caligula’
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated several times since.
Deserved or not, French cinema has a reputation for being a little racy. From classics like “Belle de Jour” to controversial modern films like “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” French film has consistently pushed the boundaries of sexuality and sensuality onscreen. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the country’s premier film festival Cannes is such an oasis for sexually explicit films, ones that have frequently generated controversy over its history — especially when these films feature unsimulated sexual acts.
Unsimulated sex onscreen at Cannes dates back to at least 1973, when the film “Thriller — a Cruel Picture,” featuring several acts of hardcore unsimulated porn, played at the festival. In the years afterwards, particularly provocative and avant-garde works like “Sweet Movie” and “The Idiots” caused shock at Cannes by presenting audiences with real, unvarnished sexual content.
Deserved or not, French cinema has a reputation for being a little racy. From classics like “Belle de Jour” to controversial modern films like “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” French film has consistently pushed the boundaries of sexuality and sensuality onscreen. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the country’s premier film festival Cannes is such an oasis for sexually explicit films, ones that have frequently generated controversy over its history — especially when these films feature unsimulated sexual acts.
Unsimulated sex onscreen at Cannes dates back to at least 1973, when the film “Thriller — a Cruel Picture,” featuring several acts of hardcore unsimulated porn, played at the festival. In the years afterwards, particularly provocative and avant-garde works like “Sweet Movie” and “The Idiots” caused shock at Cannes by presenting audiences with real, unvarnished sexual content.
- 5/23/2024
- by Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
The anarchic spirit of Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winner Titane lives on in Emma Benestan’s Critics’ Week closer Animale, the genre-busting debut of a director who cites Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, and the naturalist films of Chloé Zhao as influences. More surprisingly, she also credits Abdellatif Kechiche, since her first break was as assistant editor on his 2013 Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color.
Emma Benestan
Benestan — who would later take a full-blown editor credit on Kechiche’s 2017 feature Mektoub, My Love — was then finishing her studies at France’s prestigious La Fémis film school, but observing Kechiche’s directorial style, and witnessing his penchant for mixing professional and amateur actors, was an education in itself. “It’s the way he marries professionals and amateurs that gives his films a certain spontaneity,” she explains. “I’d been taught the director had to control everything,...
Emma Benestan
Benestan — who would later take a full-blown editor credit on Kechiche’s 2017 feature Mektoub, My Love — was then finishing her studies at France’s prestigious La Fémis film school, but observing Kechiche’s directorial style, and witnessing his penchant for mixing professional and amateur actors, was an education in itself. “It’s the way he marries professionals and amateurs that gives his films a certain spontaneity,” she explains. “I’d been taught the director had to control everything,...
- 5/18/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
A first clip has been unveiled for Emma Benestan’s “Animale,” which closes the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week strand this year.
The film is set in the Camargue region of the south of France, where daring youths participate in the local tradition of bull running. Only one woman, 22-year-old Nejma, takes her place in the arena. Taunting and evading the animals with increasing boldness, Nejma seeks to prove herself the equal of the men – inside and outside of the arena. But both situations put Nejma at risk, as a different threat looms over the community of riders: a bull is on the loose and young men are being killed. The film is designed as a supernatural fable that blends with the classic body horror, and the revenge thriller.
After several shorts and a documentary, “Animale” is Benestan’s second fiction feature after the acclaimed “Fragile” aka “Hard Shell, Soft Shell...
The film is set in the Camargue region of the south of France, where daring youths participate in the local tradition of bull running. Only one woman, 22-year-old Nejma, takes her place in the arena. Taunting and evading the animals with increasing boldness, Nejma seeks to prove herself the equal of the men – inside and outside of the arena. But both situations put Nejma at risk, as a different threat looms over the community of riders: a bull is on the loose and young men are being killed. The film is designed as a supernatural fable that blends with the classic body horror, and the revenge thriller.
After several shorts and a documentary, “Animale” is Benestan’s second fiction feature after the acclaimed “Fragile” aka “Hard Shell, Soft Shell...
- 5/15/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
One of the year’s most anticipated films will be on sale for independent buyers at the upcoming Cannes market. We can bring you news that French sales company Goodfellas has boarded Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis ahead of the movie’s world premiere in Competition at the festival.
Also confirmed today is the film’s French deal with Le Pacte and the involvement of longtime Coppola collaborator Paul Rassam.
Speculation has been rife around rollout plans for the $120M self-financed epic ever since Coppola showed it for the first time to buyers at L.A.’s Universal CityWalk Imax Theater at the end of March, with the screening followed shortly after by news of its Cannes selection.
Adam Driver stars as an idealistic architect attempting to rebuild New York as an American Utopia, with the ensemble cast also featuring Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Labeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voigt,...
Also confirmed today is the film’s French deal with Le Pacte and the involvement of longtime Coppola collaborator Paul Rassam.
Speculation has been rife around rollout plans for the $120M self-financed epic ever since Coppola showed it for the first time to buyers at L.A.’s Universal CityWalk Imax Theater at the end of March, with the screening followed shortly after by news of its Cannes selection.
Adam Driver stars as an idealistic architect attempting to rebuild New York as an American Utopia, with the ensemble cast also featuring Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Labeouf, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voigt,...
- 4/30/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow and Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Léa Seydoux (Dune: Part Two) is attached to star opposite Josh O’Connor (Challengers) in Separate Rooms, an upcoming film from Luca Guadagnino, multiple sources tell Deadline.
An adaptation of the 1989 novel by the late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli, the film is a non-chronological examination of the romance between the Italian iconoclast writer, Leo (O’Connor), and his translator, Thomas. Details as to the role Seydoux is playing haven’t been disclosed.
The script comes from Francesca Manieri, who collaborated with Guadagnino on his Sky/HBO series We Are Who We Are. Lorenzo Mieli will produce for Fremantle, following his work with Guadagnino on his cannibal romance Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet, which won Guadagnino the prize for Best Director at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
Best known for starring in the Bond films Spectre and No Time to Die, as well as Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color,...
An adaptation of the 1989 novel by the late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli, the film is a non-chronological examination of the romance between the Italian iconoclast writer, Leo (O’Connor), and his translator, Thomas. Details as to the role Seydoux is playing haven’t been disclosed.
The script comes from Francesca Manieri, who collaborated with Guadagnino on his Sky/HBO series We Are Who We Are. Lorenzo Mieli will produce for Fremantle, following his work with Guadagnino on his cannibal romance Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet, which won Guadagnino the prize for Best Director at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
Best known for starring in the Bond films Spectre and No Time to Die, as well as Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color,...
- 4/3/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Veteran French distributor Rezo Films is closing its doors after more than 32 years and nearly 400 films after struggling to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive distribution landscape.
Founded in 1992 by Jean-Michel Rey and Nadia Lassoujade, Rezo Films helped to launch the careers of several French auteurs including Abdellatif Kechiche, Pascal Bonitzer, Catherine Corsini, Xavier Dolan, Gaspar Noé, Stéphane Brizé and Jeremy Clapin.
Several of those films performed well for arthouse titles in the territory including Clapin’s debut feature I Lost My Body in 2019, Brizé’s Mademoiselle Chambon in 2009, and Kechiche’s Games Of Love And Chance (L’Esquive) with 373,618 tickets...
Founded in 1992 by Jean-Michel Rey and Nadia Lassoujade, Rezo Films helped to launch the careers of several French auteurs including Abdellatif Kechiche, Pascal Bonitzer, Catherine Corsini, Xavier Dolan, Gaspar Noé, Stéphane Brizé and Jeremy Clapin.
Several of those films performed well for arthouse titles in the territory including Clapin’s debut feature I Lost My Body in 2019, Brizé’s Mademoiselle Chambon in 2009, and Kechiche’s Games Of Love And Chance (L’Esquive) with 373,618 tickets...
- 3/19/2024
- ScreenDaily
Film critic Justin Chang has joined The New Yorker.
One of the most celebrated critics in the U.S., Chang has worked for several years at the Los Angeles Times where he’s published weekly reviews as well as longer-form essays, such as a deep dive on how “omission does not mean erasure” when it comes “Oppenheimer.” Before the L.A. Times, he worked for some years at Variety.
Chang is one of the top wordsmiths in film criticism today, devoted to sentence-level beauty in his writing that makes him a perfect fit for the New Yorker. He is also the most glorious and shameless pun-meister of the critical sphere, issuing his bon mots with abandon on Twitter/X. A recent example? “No Greta Gerwig in director or Greta Lee in lead actress, re-Greta-bly.” Though his all-time best may be referring to “Mektoub” director Abdellatif Kechiche as “a gluteus maximalist,” and...
One of the most celebrated critics in the U.S., Chang has worked for several years at the Los Angeles Times where he’s published weekly reviews as well as longer-form essays, such as a deep dive on how “omission does not mean erasure” when it comes “Oppenheimer.” Before the L.A. Times, he worked for some years at Variety.
Chang is one of the top wordsmiths in film criticism today, devoted to sentence-level beauty in his writing that makes him a perfect fit for the New Yorker. He is also the most glorious and shameless pun-meister of the critical sphere, issuing his bon mots with abandon on Twitter/X. A recent example? “No Greta Gerwig in director or Greta Lee in lead actress, re-Greta-bly.” Though his all-time best may be referring to “Mektoub” director Abdellatif Kechiche as “a gluteus maximalist,” and...
- 1/30/2024
- by Christian Blauvelt and Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Directed by award-winning French-Tunisian actor-turned-screenwriter, Abdellatif Kechiche, Blue is the Warmest Colour won the coveted Palme D’Or (Golden Palm) at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Based on a graphic novel by French illustrator, Jul Maroh, this heart-warming movie was well-received by critics, as well as being a box office smash. But its release also generated some controversy. Why? Because its central theme – lesbian love – unfolds so vigorously. The central character, Emma (Léa Seydoux), an aspiring artist with striking blue hair, enjoys a passionate relationship with Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a quiet, much younger, high school student. It wasn’t the age-gap aspect of their love affair that grabbed the headlines – after all, a disparity in ages between leading actors is as old as moviemaking itself. It had more to do with the explicit girl-on-girl sex scenes. To understand why this excellent film might have ever been thought of as contentious, it...
- 10/4/2023
- by Kulwant Singh
- Cinema Blind
The film series Adèle Exarchopoulos: Fire Starter begins showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries on August 10, 2023.Zero Fucks Given.Cassandre (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is not having it. She’s listening to someone invisible, someone with authority, addressing her and a few other flight attendants in unplaceably accented English. This is their manager, instructing them how to sell the duty-free in the air, how to push the pricey alcohol—a little snippet of the very alienated, very feminized service labor that makes contemporary convenience industries run. We know it’s a cheap airline because they wear bright, synthetic-looking uniforms; one of them looks intently at the off-camera speaker, nodding in a serious, brown-nosing kind of way. But Cassandre, wearing lots of makeup—very red lips, winged black eyeliner—is blank, petulant, distracted, looking back and forth from her coworker and manager, definitely thinking something like, “I don’t give a shit...
- 8/10/2023
- MUBI
When the companies behind Ira Sachs’ new drama about the shifting currents of intimacy in a troubled love triangle submitted Passages to the Motion Picture Association ratings board, they probably anticipated an R.
But the MPA came back with an Nc-17 rating, forcing the distributor to release the film (which premiered at Sundance earlier this year) unrated rather than risk commercial marginalization or impose cuts that would diminish its intensity. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sachs painted the MPA as an outmoded relic of the 1950s, detecting a strong whiff of dangerous cultural censorship and possible homophobia behind the seldom issued Nc-17.
Let’s be clear: Passages — which Mubi opened Aug. 4 in Los Angeles and New York before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come — is a movie with a generous amount of sex, both gay and straight. But it’s neither particularly explicit nor remotely gratuitous,...
But the MPA came back with an Nc-17 rating, forcing the distributor to release the film (which premiered at Sundance earlier this year) unrated rather than risk commercial marginalization or impose cuts that would diminish its intensity. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sachs painted the MPA as an outmoded relic of the 1950s, detecting a strong whiff of dangerous cultural censorship and possible homophobia behind the seldom issued Nc-17.
Let’s be clear: Passages — which Mubi opened Aug. 4 in Los Angeles and New York before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come — is a movie with a generous amount of sex, both gay and straight. But it’s neither particularly explicit nor remotely gratuitous,...
- 8/9/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Netflix has got a lot of movies and shows in its library, but if you want to watch some sexual shows or movies, you might have to look a bit deeper into the streamer. So, to make things easy for you we have created a list of the most sexual TV shows and movies on Netflix you can binge right now.
The Naked Director (Series) Credit – Netflix
Synopsis: As the new Japanese Heisei era began in 1989, Muranishi (Takayuki Yamada) stood at the summit of the adult video world, putting out a large number of videos in his themed series. However, none of them reached the legendary status of “I Like It S&m Style,” the masterpiece he produced with Kuroki (Misato Morita). Kuroki yearns to produce another work with Muranishi, but this desire is left unfulfilled as a gap slowly forms between them. During this time, Muranishi is urged to expand into satellite broadcasting.
The Naked Director (Series) Credit – Netflix
Synopsis: As the new Japanese Heisei era began in 1989, Muranishi (Takayuki Yamada) stood at the summit of the adult video world, putting out a large number of videos in his themed series. However, none of them reached the legendary status of “I Like It S&m Style,” the masterpiece he produced with Kuroki (Misato Morita). Kuroki yearns to produce another work with Muranishi, but this desire is left unfulfilled as a gap slowly forms between them. During this time, Muranishi is urged to expand into satellite broadcasting.
- 8/8/2023
- by Kulwant Singh
- Cinema Blind
Venice Critics’ Week has announced the line-up for its 38th edition, running August 30 to September 9 alongside the Venice Film Festival.
The seven competition titles include UK director Moin Hussain’s debut feature Sky Peals about a lonely man working the night shifts at a motorway service station with little human contact or connection. Upon hearing that his estranged father has died, Adam finds himself piecing together a complicated image of a man that he never really knew and uncovers details of his life that he struggles to comprehend.
Taiwanese actor Lee Hong-Chi’s will also unveil his directorial debut Love Is A Gun about a petty criminal whose attempts to build a quiet life following his release from prison are upended by the reappearance of his former boss, his debt-ridden mother and an old friend.
The competition titles will compete for the €5,000 Grand Prize and the €3,000 Audience Award. The selection...
The seven competition titles include UK director Moin Hussain’s debut feature Sky Peals about a lonely man working the night shifts at a motorway service station with little human contact or connection. Upon hearing that his estranged father has died, Adam finds himself piecing together a complicated image of a man that he never really knew and uncovers details of his life that he struggles to comprehend.
Taiwanese actor Lee Hong-Chi’s will also unveil his directorial debut Love Is A Gun about a petty criminal whose attempts to build a quiet life following his release from prison are upended by the reappearance of his former boss, his debt-ridden mother and an old friend.
The competition titles will compete for the €5,000 Grand Prize and the €3,000 Audience Award. The selection...
- 7/24/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
What happens when six Hollywood Reporter film critics get together to pick their 50 favorite movies of the 21st century so far? Debating, deliberating, voting, the devising of a nerdy point system, second-guessing, fine-tuning, re-deliberating, re-second-guessing, re-fine-tuning — you get the picture.
But now the list is published, and below are things we thought readers might find interesting about our selections. Some of these things surprised us, too.
18 films not in English: 4 French, 3 Japanese, 2 Korean, 2 Romanian, 2 Mexican, 1 Spanish, 1 Taiwanese, 1 Hong Kong, 1 Russian, 1 Mauritanian 11 films directed by women 9 films directed by Black filmmakers 6 documentaries 2 animated films 4 first films 5 directors with multiple films on the list: Jane Campion (2), the Coen brothers (2), Alfonso Cuarón (2), David Fincher (2), Richard Linklater (2) 2 best picture Oscar winners (Moonlight and Parasite) 3 Cannes Palme d’Or winners (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; Shoplifters; Parasite) 2 Venice Golden Lion winners (The Return and Brokeback Mountain) Years with the most films represented: 2016 and 2018 (4 each) Actors with...
But now the list is published, and below are things we thought readers might find interesting about our selections. Some of these things surprised us, too.
18 films not in English: 4 French, 3 Japanese, 2 Korean, 2 Romanian, 2 Mexican, 1 Spanish, 1 Taiwanese, 1 Hong Kong, 1 Russian, 1 Mauritanian 11 films directed by women 9 films directed by Black filmmakers 6 documentaries 2 animated films 4 first films 5 directors with multiple films on the list: Jane Campion (2), the Coen brothers (2), Alfonso Cuarón (2), David Fincher (2), Richard Linklater (2) 2 best picture Oscar winners (Moonlight and Parasite) 3 Cannes Palme d’Or winners (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; Shoplifters; Parasite) 2 Venice Golden Lion winners (The Return and Brokeback Mountain) Years with the most films represented: 2016 and 2018 (4 each) Actors with...
- 4/6/2023
- by Jon Frosch, David Rooney, Sheri Linden, Lovia Gyarkye, Leslie Felperin and Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Adèle Exarchopoulos in The Five Devils Photo: Courtesy of BFI Flare Much has happened to The Five Devils star Adèle Exarchopoulos since she burst on the scene alongside Léa Seydoux when, unusually, they both received a Palme d’Or each with director Abdellatif Kechiche also a winner, for Blue Is The Warmest Colour (La vie d’Adèle) from a jury headed by Steven Spielberg.
That was in 2013 when she was just 19, and the youngest recipient ever of the coveted award. There was a controversial fall-out between the actors and director. Exarchopoulos and Seydoux complained about Kechiche's tortuous process - in particular an explicit sex scene had taken ten days. Exarchopoulos said at the time that the director had made Seydoux hit her repeatedly across the face in a fight scene. Now, at 29, she’s mother to six-year-old Ismaël with an ex-boyfriend the French rapper Morgan Frémont otherwise known as Doums, with whom she shares parenting.
That was in 2013 when she was just 19, and the youngest recipient ever of the coveted award. There was a controversial fall-out between the actors and director. Exarchopoulos and Seydoux complained about Kechiche's tortuous process - in particular an explicit sex scene had taken ten days. Exarchopoulos said at the time that the director had made Seydoux hit her repeatedly across the face in a fight scene. Now, at 29, she’s mother to six-year-old Ismaël with an ex-boyfriend the French rapper Morgan Frémont otherwise known as Doums, with whom she shares parenting.
- 3/16/2023
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Dawn Richard Champions the Power of Self-Expression in Moving New Orleans-Set Dance Short ‘Pigments’
Having worked as a songwriter, producer and music-making artist since 2005, Dawn Richard knows the power of self-expression and in creating her first film as director she brings that power to her city, New Orleans. Pigments, which Richard co-directed with filmmaker Monty Marsh, is an experimental blend of dance, poetry and documentary that portrays the city of New Orleans through a lens of pure self-expression. It’s a gorgeous film with a powerful acknowledgement of the stories of individuals which Richards achieves by casting the film with the dance students of the New Orleans Centre for Creative Arts, a decision which allows the film to be embedded in a truth and reality known only by the residents of the famed city. Dn sat down with Richard for a conversation where she talks to us about the decision to shift perspectives on New Orleans in addition to her ongoing development as a multi-hyphenated artist.
- 2/22/2023
- by James Maitre
- Directors Notes
Mektoub My Love: Canto Tre
The pandemic and the servings of humble pie eaten after his Cannes 2019 premiere debacle means that while he might be a jerk of a person, Abdellatif Kechiche will have the opportunity to get out of movie jail. Both the second and third instalments of Mektoub My Love will indeed see the day of light and we’d be lying if we said we weren’t extremely curious. Technically this part of a quadrilogy with Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo not offering much to the promise of 2017’s Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno. As the closing film – we don’t know what to expect but we imagine that Mektoub My Love: Canto Tre would zero in on select characters with a trajectory that is open-ended.…...
The pandemic and the servings of humble pie eaten after his Cannes 2019 premiere debacle means that while he might be a jerk of a person, Abdellatif Kechiche will have the opportunity to get out of movie jail. Both the second and third instalments of Mektoub My Love will indeed see the day of light and we’d be lying if we said we weren’t extremely curious. Technically this part of a quadrilogy with Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo not offering much to the promise of 2017’s Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno. As the closing film – we don’t know what to expect but we imagine that Mektoub My Love: Canto Tre would zero in on select characters with a trajectory that is open-ended.…...
- 1/16/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Wild Bunch co-founders Vincent Maraval and Brahim Chioua bid farewell to the legendary company name they created in 2002 at a characteristically rebel-rousing party in Paris bannered “Forever Wild Whatever The Name!” on Thursday night, but have yet to confirm their new name.
Taking place during Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris, local and international collaborators flocked to the Annette K barge on the banks of the Seine for the event, featuring a Céline Dion tribute act and a set by DJ Kiddy Smile who appeared in Gaspar Noé’s Climax.
The dropping of the name marks the final act in their departure from the pan-European Wild Bunch Ag film group, which was created in 2015 out of the merger of their original French company Wild Bunch and Germany’s Senator and is now majority owned by German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst.
Maraval and Chioua and their 15-person-strong team struck out as a standalone...
Taking place during Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris, local and international collaborators flocked to the Annette K barge on the banks of the Seine for the event, featuring a Céline Dion tribute act and a set by DJ Kiddy Smile who appeared in Gaspar Noé’s Climax.
The dropping of the name marks the final act in their departure from the pan-European Wild Bunch Ag film group, which was created in 2015 out of the merger of their original French company Wild Bunch and Germany’s Senator and is now majority owned by German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst.
Maraval and Chioua and their 15-person-strong team struck out as a standalone...
- 1/13/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
This review originally ran May 19, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Just two days into this year’s Cannes Film Festival, audiences have already confronted puking zombies, freak-out orgies and a surprise visit from the Trumps. But nothing could quite prepare festival goers for the outlandish offer of Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo,” which premiered in competition late Thursday night.
Following a donkey separated from a loving owner and cast into an unforgiving world, the film offers a neon buffed glow-up to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” and plays out more or less like a Nicholas Winding Refn influenced horror flick – which makes the fact that Skolimowski is an 84-years-young Polish man, the oldest director at Cannes, all the more surprising.
A through-and-through exercice de style as the French would put it, “Eo” has plenty on its mind and nothing much to say,...
Just two days into this year’s Cannes Film Festival, audiences have already confronted puking zombies, freak-out orgies and a surprise visit from the Trumps. But nothing could quite prepare festival goers for the outlandish offer of Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo,” which premiered in competition late Thursday night.
Following a donkey separated from a loving owner and cast into an unforgiving world, the film offers a neon buffed glow-up to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” and plays out more or less like a Nicholas Winding Refn influenced horror flick – which makes the fact that Skolimowski is an 84-years-young Polish man, the oldest director at Cannes, all the more surprising.
A through-and-through exercice de style as the French would put it, “Eo” has plenty on its mind and nothing much to say,...
- 12/2/2022
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
Tunisian-French filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche didn’t need the pandemic as an excuse to hunker down. It is well known that his ego and reputation took a hit after his Palme d’Or win for Blue Is the Warmest Color, and he officially moved into director jail when Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo shored up in Cannes 2019. Prior to yesterday’s masterclass given at the Festival of Mediterranean Cinema (Cinémed) in Montpellier (you can see the protest on the socials), Kechiche spoke to Paris Match and confided that he regrets having shown the film and that the next parts have indeed been filmed, and that he has been editing them and reassembling for the past three years now.…...
- 10/29/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
As we get deeper into the fall movie season, October—per usual—delivers some of the most essential films of the year. As much of the cinema-related excitement is owed to the New York Film Festival, many of the finest in this year’s slate will begin their limited releases this month, while other favorites from earlier in the festival year also start rolling out. See our top picks below.
15. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (Arthur Harari; Oct. 7)
The opening title of Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year, Arthur Harari’s epic adventure Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle will finally hit U.S. theaters this week. Following the true story of a Japanese soldier who refused to believe that World War II had ended and continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974, there’s been much acclaim for the nearly three-hour film; we’re looking forward to finally catching up with it.
15. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (Arthur Harari; Oct. 7)
The opening title of Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year, Arthur Harari’s epic adventure Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle will finally hit U.S. theaters this week. Following the true story of a Japanese soldier who refused to believe that World War II had ended and continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974, there’s been much acclaim for the nearly three-hour film; we’re looking forward to finally catching up with it.
- 10/5/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
After watching thousands of hours worth of cinema, what filmmaking techniques are ingrained to the form that lead to disempowering and objectifying women? Using examples from Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color, and much more, Nina Menkes digs deep to unpack the precise directorial decisions––some perhaps even subconscious––that have led to women being diminished throughout cinema history in her latest film. Ahead of an October 21 theatrical release via Kino Lorber, the first trailer has arrived.
David Katz said in his review, “It’s interesting, still, that Nina Menkes, a radical American independent filmmaker, has chosen to take up this mantle of something so pedagogic, when her own slippery and ever-mysterious films (such as Queen of Diamonds and Phantom Love) are not. But it does clarify,...
David Katz said in his review, “It’s interesting, still, that Nina Menkes, a radical American independent filmmaker, has chosen to take up this mantle of something so pedagogic, when her own slippery and ever-mysterious films (such as Queen of Diamonds and Phantom Love) are not. But it does clarify,...
- 9/28/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Distribution
“Mariupol. Unlost Hope,” one of two Ukrainian documentaries recently acquired by Beta Film’s Autentic Distribution, will be released in 40 cities across the world, which are similar to Mariupol either by population or as a port and/or industrial center, or cities that are twinned with Mariupol, on Aug. 24, Ukraine independence day.
The film shows the Ukraine war through the eyes of ordinary people who lived through the first month of the invasion in Mariupol. Based on the diaries of local journalist Nadia Sukhorukova, the film is directed by Maksym Litvinov and produced by Volodymyr Borodyansky. It is backed by the Organization of Ukrainian Producers, a group of seven Ukrainian TV and film producers established in March to document the Russian invasion and its impact on Ukraine.
The release campaign is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Dmytro Kuleba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said:...
“Mariupol. Unlost Hope,” one of two Ukrainian documentaries recently acquired by Beta Film’s Autentic Distribution, will be released in 40 cities across the world, which are similar to Mariupol either by population or as a port and/or industrial center, or cities that are twinned with Mariupol, on Aug. 24, Ukraine independence day.
The film shows the Ukraine war through the eyes of ordinary people who lived through the first month of the invasion in Mariupol. Based on the diaries of local journalist Nadia Sukhorukova, the film is directed by Maksym Litvinov and produced by Volodymyr Borodyansky. It is backed by the Organization of Ukrainian Producers, a group of seven Ukrainian TV and film producers established in March to document the Russian invasion and its impact on Ukraine.
The release campaign is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Dmytro Kuleba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said:...
- 8/22/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Japanese drama Drive My Car has won the Fipresci Grand Prix for best film of 2022, awarded by the members of the International Federation of Film Critics.
Drive My Car premiered in Cannes last year, where it won best screenplay honors as well as the Cannes Fipresci prize, the start of an awards season run that peaked with it taking this year’s Oscar for best international feature. The slow-burning drama, which unfolds largely through conversations between a playwright and his female chauffeur, was adapted from a short story by acclaimed Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
For the top Fipresci honor, Drive My Car beat out this year’s other four Fipresci finalists: Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Ruben Östlund’s 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness, as well as Joachim Trier’s...
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Japanese drama Drive My Car has won the Fipresci Grand Prix for best film of 2022, awarded by the members of the International Federation of Film Critics.
Drive My Car premiered in Cannes last year, where it won best screenplay honors as well as the Cannes Fipresci prize, the start of an awards season run that peaked with it taking this year’s Oscar for best international feature. The slow-burning drama, which unfolds largely through conversations between a playwright and his female chauffeur, was adapted from a short story by acclaimed Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
For the top Fipresci honor, Drive My Car beat out this year’s other four Fipresci finalists: Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Ruben Östlund’s 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness, as well as Joachim Trier’s...
- 8/22/2022
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Hafsia Herzi will be setting her sights on her third outing as early as next year. We’ve known Herzi as the face of Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain and in Mark Jackson’s last pair of films in War Story and This Teacher, but she has firmly made her place as a filmmaker with two Cannes Film Festival selected films of You Deserve a Lover (2019) and Bonne Mère (2021).
Currently toplining Stéphane Demoustier’s Ibiza (formerly titled Borgo), and with the status of Patricia Mazuy’s Portraits trompeurs unknown, Herzi recently received some coin for La Petite Dernière (back in March) and will likely be going through some extensive casting to find the film’s lead.…...
Currently toplining Stéphane Demoustier’s Ibiza (formerly titled Borgo), and with the status of Patricia Mazuy’s Portraits trompeurs unknown, Herzi recently received some coin for La Petite Dernière (back in March) and will likely be going through some extensive casting to find the film’s lead.…...
- 6/3/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
It was hard to be at the Cannes Film Festival this year and not run into Léa Seydoux. The French actress starred in two well-received movies at this year’s festival, David Cronenberg’s dystopian “Crimes of the Future” and Mia Hansen-Løve’s romantic drama “One Fine Morning,” and also attended a lively 75th-anniversary event for the festival. Throughout the two-week event, she was spotted at restaurants and parties around town, blending into the scene right on schedule.
Cannes has become a kind of ritual for Seydoux, with the exception of last year, when a positive Covid test nixed her trip even though she had three films in competition: “The French Dispatch,” “The Story of My Wife,” and Bruno Dumont’s “France.” Even when circumstances kept her from coming here, audiences couldn’t avoid Seydoux on the big screen.
“Every French actor comes here,” Seydoux said in an interview a...
Cannes has become a kind of ritual for Seydoux, with the exception of last year, when a positive Covid test nixed her trip even though she had three films in competition: “The French Dispatch,” “The Story of My Wife,” and Bruno Dumont’s “France.” Even when circumstances kept her from coming here, audiences couldn’t avoid Seydoux on the big screen.
“Every French actor comes here,” Seydoux said in an interview a...
- 5/27/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
It was Paul Gauguin, France’s most celebrated Polynesian tourist, who once wrote of “learning to know the silence of a Tahitian night.” It’s a void, he wrote, in which other senses and sensory awarenesses are heightened, amplifying his sense of loneliness and separation from others: “The inhabitants of the district and I mutually watched each other, and the distance remained the same.” Gauguin isn’t mentioned in “Pacifiction,” Albert Serra’s languorous, meandering tour of modern-day Tahiti, though those words echo through its survey of the island’s distanced, distracted residents — even if the nights here aren’t as silent as the artist might remember, disrupted as they are with tinny discotheque beats, darkened trysts and the hovering, unidentified threat of nuclear warfare.
The first film by cultish Catalan provocateur Serra to crack Cannes’s competition lineup, “Pacifiction” is an unhurried, 164-minute tropical tour that is sort of...
The first film by cultish Catalan provocateur Serra to crack Cannes’s competition lineup, “Pacifiction” is an unhurried, 164-minute tropical tour that is sort of...
- 5/27/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Every Cannes Film Festival, there is a quest to find the most iconic needle-drop moment from films playing across every strand. The 2022 gold medal is Léa Mysius’s to lose for her deployment of Bonnie Tyler’s 80s power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The song is cued up at a karaoke night in a sleepy French village, selected by Joanne (Adèle Exarchopoulos) for her and Julia (Swala Emati) to perform. Julia has the distinction of being both Joanne’s long-lost, high-school love, and the sister of the man she ended up marrying. When Julia suddenly returns, after years of self-exile, theirs is not the easiest path back to each other. In their corner, helping out, is the snarling, roaring force of this raw anthem. Emat, a professional singer, and Exarchopoulos, an actress who puts her body into everything she does, grow in confidence as the song builds to its ragged crescendo.
- 5/25/2022
- by Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
Léa Seydoux made history as the first actress, alongside “Blue Is the Warmest Colour” co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, to win the Palme d’Or instead of just a director. Why? Because Seydoux’s performance braved the reign of director Abdellatif Kechiche on set.
The French star, who returns to Cannes this year with David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” and Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning,” said that the famed seven-minute “Blue” lesbian sex scene required over 100 takes for a single shot and took 10 days to film.
When asked now, almost a decade later, if an intimacy coordinator would have changed the dynamics on set, Seydoux told The Hollywood Reporter, “No, not really,” offering up a shocking laugh.
She added, “It was beyond. It was the whole film, not only the sex scenes. The way we shot this film was just insane. The guy is just nuts.”
Upon the Cannes...
The French star, who returns to Cannes this year with David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” and Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning,” said that the famed seven-minute “Blue” lesbian sex scene required over 100 takes for a single shot and took 10 days to film.
When asked now, almost a decade later, if an intimacy coordinator would have changed the dynamics on set, Seydoux told The Hollywood Reporter, “No, not really,” offering up a shocking laugh.
She added, “It was beyond. It was the whole film, not only the sex scenes. The way we shot this film was just insane. The guy is just nuts.”
Upon the Cannes...
- 5/10/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
For their 2022 edition, the Sundance Film Festival has once again adapted to the ever-shifting pandemic landscape. Having recently scrapping their in-person plans, they’ve shifted to a virtual-only lineup that will begin this Thursday and last through January 30, offering the first glimpse at the year in cinema.
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re highlighting the premieres that should be on your radar. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
As his early films exuded a documentary-like approach to riveting character studies, it’s not surprising that Ramin Bahrani’s first fully fledged non-fiction feature is a wildly entertaining look at a complicated figure. 2nd Chance explores the life and career ambitions of Richard Davis, a pizzeria owner who built a bulletproof-vest empire. Full of twists,...
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re highlighting the premieres that should be on your radar. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
As his early films exuded a documentary-like approach to riveting character studies, it’s not surprising that Ramin Bahrani’s first fully fledged non-fiction feature is a wildly entertaining look at a complicated figure. 2nd Chance explores the life and career ambitions of Richard Davis, a pizzeria owner who built a bulletproof-vest empire. Full of twists,...
- 1/18/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Spike Lee, the president of the jury at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, accidentally announced that Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in what were supposed to be his opening remarks at the awards ceremony. The revelation rocked the crowd inside the Grand Theatre Lumiere, and set social media abuzz at the beginning of a ceremony that traditionally ends with the crowning of the Palme winner.
His slip-up came when a ceremony host, French actress Doria Tiller, asked Lee, “Can you tell me which prize is the first prize?” Lee got to his feet, and instead of telling her that the best actor award would be the first one handed out, said, “Yes, I can. The film that won the Palme d’Or is ‘Titane.'” Fellow juror Melanie Laurent reached for Lee and shouted, “No!” while other jurors laughed or buried their faces in their hands.
At the end of the ceremony,...
His slip-up came when a ceremony host, French actress Doria Tiller, asked Lee, “Can you tell me which prize is the first prize?” Lee got to his feet, and instead of telling her that the best actor award would be the first one handed out, said, “Yes, I can. The film that won the Palme d’Or is ‘Titane.'” Fellow juror Melanie Laurent reached for Lee and shouted, “No!” while other jurors laughed or buried their faces in their hands.
At the end of the ceremony,...
- 7/17/2021
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Seydoux is asymptomatic and has since tested negative.
French actor Léa Seydoux will not travel from Paris to Cannes to promote her four films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, following her positive Covid-19 test that was reported at the weekend.
In a statement issued today (July 14), Seydoux said,
“Sadly, I have to self-quarantine in Paris and won’t be able to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year. I wish I could celebrate the return of cinema to my favorite festival, but it is in everyone’s best interest to err on the side of caution and do...
French actor Léa Seydoux will not travel from Paris to Cannes to promote her four films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, following her positive Covid-19 test that was reported at the weekend.
In a statement issued today (July 14), Seydoux said,
“Sadly, I have to self-quarantine in Paris and won’t be able to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year. I wish I could celebrate the return of cinema to my favorite festival, but it is in everyone’s best interest to err on the side of caution and do...
- 7/14/2021
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Lea Seydoux, one of France’s biggest stars who was expected to be the toast of Cannes with three films in competition, issued a statement on July 14 saying that she won’t be able to attend the festival as she is currently self-isolating after testing positive to Covid-19.
“Sadly, I have to self-quarantine in Paris and won’t be able to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year. I wish I could celebrate the return of cinema to my favorite festival, but it is in everyone’s best interest to err on the side of caution and do my part to keep everyone safe and healthy,” said Seydoux, who had to skip the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” on Monday.
“I applaud all four of my directors and the cast ensembles for their remarkable achievements. From a distance and in thoughts, I am with you with all my heart.
“Sadly, I have to self-quarantine in Paris and won’t be able to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year. I wish I could celebrate the return of cinema to my favorite festival, but it is in everyone’s best interest to err on the side of caution and do my part to keep everyone safe and healthy,” said Seydoux, who had to skip the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” on Monday.
“I applaud all four of my directors and the cast ensembles for their remarkable achievements. From a distance and in thoughts, I am with you with all my heart.
- 7/14/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
News comes as Lea Seydoux tests positive in Paris, casting doubt on Cannes attendance.
Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux has denounced “silly” rumours of Covid spread at the festival, claiming that “there is no Cannes cluster”.
Speaking before a screening of Hafsia Herzi’s Un Certain Regard title Bonne Mere at 2pm on Saturday July 10, Frémaux read a statement to the audience in which he said there were no positive tests at all at the festival on Friday July 9.
Frémaux provided data on the number of tests given and cases contracted at the festival. He also sought to reassure...
Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux has denounced “silly” rumours of Covid spread at the festival, claiming that “there is no Cannes cluster”.
Speaking before a screening of Hafsia Herzi’s Un Certain Regard title Bonne Mere at 2pm on Saturday July 10, Frémaux read a statement to the audience in which he said there were no positive tests at all at the festival on Friday July 9.
Frémaux provided data on the number of tests given and cases contracted at the festival. He also sought to reassure...
- 7/10/2021
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
French actor Lea Seydoux is supposed to be the toast of this year’s Cannes Film Festival with four films, including three in competition. But sources say that the French star may cancel her trip to the South of France after testing positive for Covid.
Seydoux has not made the trip to Cannes yet; she’s currently on the production of a film, during which she contracted Covid. A source close to the actor says she’s most asymptomatic and has been self isolating for over a week at her Paris home.
A spokesperson for Seydoux confirmed she tested positive for Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated and asymptomatic. She will remain in quarantine until her doctors deem her safe to travel to Cannes and attend festival events.
In a plot twist worthy of an episode of “Call My Agent!,” Seydoux is getting tested every day. She is waiting for negative...
Seydoux has not made the trip to Cannes yet; she’s currently on the production of a film, during which she contracted Covid. A source close to the actor says she’s most asymptomatic and has been self isolating for over a week at her Paris home.
A spokesperson for Seydoux confirmed she tested positive for Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated and asymptomatic. She will remain in quarantine until her doctors deem her safe to travel to Cannes and attend festival events.
In a plot twist worthy of an episode of “Call My Agent!,” Seydoux is getting tested every day. She is waiting for negative...
- 7/10/2021
- by Ramin Setoodeh and Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been just eight years since Adele Exarchopoulos became the cinematic revelation of the Cannes Film Festival. The French actress didn’t only enjoy her major breakout moment on the Croisette with 2013’s Blue Is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s critically-lauded lesbian romance, but made history by becoming the first actress to win the Palme d’Or — alongside her co-star Lea Seydoux — and, at just 19 at the time, its youngest ever recipient.
Less than a decade on and several Cannes visits later, Exarchopoulos — now 27 — is back, this time with two films. In Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre’s Zero ...
Less than a decade on and several Cannes visits later, Exarchopoulos — now 27 — is back, this time with two films. In Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre’s Zero ...
- 7/10/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
It’s been just eight years since Adele Exarchopoulos became the cinematic revelation of the Cannes Film Festival. The French actress didn’t only enjoy her major breakout moment on the Croisette with 2013’s Blue Is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s critically-lauded lesbian romance, but made history by becoming the first actress to win the Palme d’Or — alongside her co-star Lea Seydoux — and, at just 19 at the time, its youngest ever recipient.
Less than a decade on and several Cannes visits later, Exarchopoulos — now 27 — is back, this time with two films. In Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre’s Zero ...
Less than a decade on and several Cannes visits later, Exarchopoulos — now 27 — is back, this time with two films. In Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre’s Zero ...
- 7/10/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for “The Story of My Wife,” which screens in competition at Cannes Festival. Oscar-nominated director Ildikó Enyedi’s film stars Palme d’Or winner Léa Seydoux. Films Boutique is handling world sales rights.
Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul” won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2017 and was Oscar nominated the following year. Seydoux won Cannes’ Palme d’Or, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” in 2013.
Also in the cast are Gijs Naber (“How to Avoid Everything”), Louis Garrel (“Redoubtable”), Josef Hader (“Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe”), Sergio Rubini (“The Stuff of Dreams”) and Jasmine Trinca (“Honey”).
“The Story of My Wife” is an adaptation of Milan Fust’s 1942 novel of the same name. The story, a variation of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, is set in the 1920s. In it sea...
Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul” won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2017 and was Oscar nominated the following year. Seydoux won Cannes’ Palme d’Or, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” in 2013.
Also in the cast are Gijs Naber (“How to Avoid Everything”), Louis Garrel (“Redoubtable”), Josef Hader (“Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe”), Sergio Rubini (“The Stuff of Dreams”) and Jasmine Trinca (“Honey”).
“The Story of My Wife” is an adaptation of Milan Fust’s 1942 novel of the same name. The story, a variation of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, is set in the 1920s. In it sea...
- 6/30/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
This Swedish relationship drama starts promisingly, but the script is too soapy and laboured
Sheets in disarray, two lovers avoiding each other’s gaze; Swedish director David Färdmar opens his feature debut with an emotional bomb blast in a perfect white bedroom. “So you can’t even say it any more,” spits out Adrian (Björn Elgerd). Finally, Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) concedes: “I love you. But there is no more ‘we’.” Leaving the wounds hidden, this is a promisingly imposing opening scene – but Färdmar, as he charts the pair’s breakup, can’t fully flesh it out in a stiff and increasingly laboured LGBT drama.
Initially, it’s a duel for moving-on supremacy. Adrian seems to take the early lead, hooking up with an ex, while Hampus appears the needier, tearfully manipulating him back into bed. But it’s Hampus who strikes out first on a new relationship, while Adrian – resentment...
Sheets in disarray, two lovers avoiding each other’s gaze; Swedish director David Färdmar opens his feature debut with an emotional bomb blast in a perfect white bedroom. “So you can’t even say it any more,” spits out Adrian (Björn Elgerd). Finally, Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) concedes: “I love you. But there is no more ‘we’.” Leaving the wounds hidden, this is a promisingly imposing opening scene – but Färdmar, as he charts the pair’s breakup, can’t fully flesh it out in a stiff and increasingly laboured LGBT drama.
Initially, it’s a duel for moving-on supremacy. Adrian seems to take the early lead, hooking up with an ex, while Hampus appears the needier, tearfully manipulating him back into bed. But it’s Hampus who strikes out first on a new relationship, while Adrian – resentment...
- 1/18/2021
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
Line-up features films by Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, Quentin Dupieux and Julia Ducournau.
Wild Bunch International (Wbi) is launching new films by Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, Quentin Dupieux and Julia Ducournau at next week’s Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema.
As per company tradition, the Paris-based sales powerhouse has unveiled most of its French line-up for the coming year ahead of the annual event.
The Rendez-vous is taking place online from January 13-15 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Denis, Desplechin and Dupieux’s new productions were all conceived against the backdrop of the Covid-19 lockdowns and political upheavals of last year.
Wild Bunch International (Wbi) is launching new films by Arnaud Desplechin, Claire Denis, Quentin Dupieux and Julia Ducournau at next week’s Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema.
As per company tradition, the Paris-based sales powerhouse has unveiled most of its French line-up for the coming year ahead of the annual event.
The Rendez-vous is taking place online from January 13-15 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Denis, Desplechin and Dupieux’s new productions were all conceived against the backdrop of the Covid-19 lockdowns and political upheavals of last year.
- 1/8/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Nora
Hafsia Herzi returns with her sophomore feature Nora in 2021, produced by Said Ben Said. Starring Sabrina Benhamed, Halima Benhamed, Justine Gregory and Noemie Casari, she reunites with cinematographer Jeremie Attard (Spring Blossom). Herzi’s 2019 debut Tu mérites un amour (You Deserve a Lover) premiered in Critic’s Week at the Cannes Film Festival, but she is best known for her sterling work with Abdellatif Kechiche, her performance in his 2007 film The Secret of the Grain netting her the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival as well as a Cesar for Most Promising Actress.…...
Hafsia Herzi returns with her sophomore feature Nora in 2021, produced by Said Ben Said. Starring Sabrina Benhamed, Halima Benhamed, Justine Gregory and Noemie Casari, she reunites with cinematographer Jeremie Attard (Spring Blossom). Herzi’s 2019 debut Tu mérites un amour (You Deserve a Lover) premiered in Critic’s Week at the Cannes Film Festival, but she is best known for her sterling work with Abdellatif Kechiche, her performance in his 2007 film The Secret of the Grain netting her the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival as well as a Cesar for Most Promising Actress.…...
- 1/4/2021
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Mektoub My Love: Canto Due
Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2019 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo which premiered in comp at Cannes to divisive responses and widespread critical consternation. Nevertheless, as the title of his past two Mektoub films would indicate, we have always been destined for a Mektoub My Love: Canto Due. While Intermezzo waits for its theatrical premiere in France, potentially a different, edited version of what was seen at Cannes (the film apparently circulated on bootleg DVDs amongst the North-African population in France), conversations suggest Kechiche’s third chapter in the ongoing Mektoub saga is already in the can.…...
Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2019 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo which premiered in comp at Cannes to divisive responses and widespread critical consternation. Nevertheless, as the title of his past two Mektoub films would indicate, we have always been destined for a Mektoub My Love: Canto Due. While Intermezzo waits for its theatrical premiere in France, potentially a different, edited version of what was seen at Cannes (the film apparently circulated on bootleg DVDs amongst the North-African population in France), conversations suggest Kechiche’s third chapter in the ongoing Mektoub saga is already in the can.…...
- 1/3/2021
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: Adèle Exarchopoulos, who in 2013 became the youngest winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for her co-starring role in Blue Is the Warmest Color, has signed with UTA.
The move comes as the French-born actor has several projects in the works. In film, that includes the French crime drama Bac Nord directed by Cédric Jimenez and Quentin Dupieux’s fantasy comedy Mandibles. On TV, she co-starred with Jonathan Cohen on the recent first season of the Canal+ reality TV dating spoof comedy La Flamme.
Exarchopoulos was just 19 when she, co-star Léa Seydoux and director Abdellatif Kechiche in a rare feat shared the top Cannes honor for the drama. That led to roles including in Sean Penn’s The Last Face with Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem, Michaël R. Roskam’s Racer and the Jailbird, Ralph Fiennes’ The White Crow and Justine Triet’s Sibyl.
Her credits...
The move comes as the French-born actor has several projects in the works. In film, that includes the French crime drama Bac Nord directed by Cédric Jimenez and Quentin Dupieux’s fantasy comedy Mandibles. On TV, she co-starred with Jonathan Cohen on the recent first season of the Canal+ reality TV dating spoof comedy La Flamme.
Exarchopoulos was just 19 when she, co-star Léa Seydoux and director Abdellatif Kechiche in a rare feat shared the top Cannes honor for the drama. That led to roles including in Sean Penn’s The Last Face with Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem, Michaël R. Roskam’s Racer and the Jailbird, Ralph Fiennes’ The White Crow and Justine Triet’s Sibyl.
Her credits...
- 12/12/2020
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
An intellectually stimulating art-house treasure all too easily overlooked amid the near-constant flood of Netflix content, “An Easy Girl” depicts a transformative summer in the life of a 16-year-old girl, but not the one described in the film’s title. That label — which writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski employs ironically, calling into question the patriarchal idea that a woman’s worth is tied up in how “hard to get” she plays it — refers to the protagonist’s 22-year-old cousin, no girl at all, but a comely temptress who breezes into the coastal French city of Cannes like a seductive tropical storm, turning heads and jostling perceptions wherever she goes.
Shifting gears from her widely panned “Planetarium”, Zlotowski delivers a relatively modest but far more thought-provoking project — a Rohmerian moral tale, à “La Collectionneuse,” with a shrewd feminist twist. It’s at once a striking auteur statement (launched during Director’s Fortnight at...
Shifting gears from her widely panned “Planetarium”, Zlotowski delivers a relatively modest but far more thought-provoking project — a Rohmerian moral tale, à “La Collectionneuse,” with a shrewd feminist twist. It’s at once a striking auteur statement (launched during Director’s Fortnight at...
- 8/13/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
If you read Heather Wixson's 4-star review or you listened to our Sundance episode of Corpse Club featuring director Natalie Erika James, then you know that we can't wait for Daily Dead readers to see her new horror film Relic. Before it comes to theaters and Digital/VOD on July 10th, IFC will release Relic in drive-in theaters early beginning July 3rd, just in time for the Fourth of July weekend:
Press Release: New York, NY: Ahead of its July 10th theatrical and Digital/VOD date, IFC Films is bringing Relic to drive-in theaters only as an advance week-run beginning July 3rd as studios delay new releases to later in the summer. With a current score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Relic is one of the year’s most highly anticipated genre films of the Summer.
Recently heralded as one of Indiewire’s ‘20 Rising Women Directors You Need to Know...
Press Release: New York, NY: Ahead of its July 10th theatrical and Digital/VOD date, IFC Films is bringing Relic to drive-in theaters only as an advance week-run beginning July 3rd as studios delay new releases to later in the summer. With a current score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Relic is one of the year’s most highly anticipated genre films of the Summer.
Recently heralded as one of Indiewire’s ‘20 Rising Women Directors You Need to Know...
- 6/18/2020
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Curated retrospectives include Cannes winners, genre, family documentaries.
IFC Films has launched The Indie Theater Revival Project and curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres when they emerge from lockdown, offering library titles for free during the first month they open.
The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and IFC Films said on Tuesday (21) it will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.
Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No...
IFC Films has launched The Indie Theater Revival Project and curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres when they emerge from lockdown, offering library titles for free during the first month they open.
The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and IFC Films said on Tuesday (21) it will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.
Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No...
- 4/21/2020
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
Curated retrospectives to be made available for participating theatres.
IFC Films announced on Tuesday (21) The Indie Theater Revival Project and has curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres to screen when they reopen in the weeks and months ahead.
The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.
Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No film rental will be due for any of...
IFC Films announced on Tuesday (21) The Indie Theater Revival Project and has curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres to screen when they reopen in the weeks and months ahead.
The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.
Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No film rental will be due for any of...
- 4/21/2020
- ScreenDaily
IFC Films is offering embattled indie theaters hundreds of films from its library to screen when they re-open from their mass Covid-19 related shutdown.
The movies, which include such IFC classics as “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Boyhood,” will be made available to cinemas without any rental fees. The retrospective program boasts roughly 200 films. Theaters will not be charged any film rental.
“We are honoring the partnership we’ve had with theaters over the last 20 years and we’re sending them a message of solidarity and gratefulness,” said Lisa Schwartz, co-president of IFC Films. “They’ve been with us since beginning and when they come back, we want to be there with them.”
The indie studio is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and had been putting together programming to honor the occasion. After coronavirus closed most theaters in March, IFC began to rethink its plans.
“This was a positive way...
The movies, which include such IFC classics as “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Boyhood,” will be made available to cinemas without any rental fees. The retrospective program boasts roughly 200 films. Theaters will not be charged any film rental.
“We are honoring the partnership we’ve had with theaters over the last 20 years and we’re sending them a message of solidarity and gratefulness,” said Lisa Schwartz, co-president of IFC Films. “They’ve been with us since beginning and when they come back, we want to be there with them.”
The indie studio is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and had been putting together programming to honor the occasion. After coronavirus closed most theaters in March, IFC began to rethink its plans.
“This was a positive way...
- 4/21/2020
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Mektoub, My Love: Canto Tre
The conflict continues surrounding the impending theatrical release of Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2019 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (read review), which premiered in competition at Cannes to divisive responses and widespread critical consternation. Nevertheless, as the title of his past two Mektoub films would indicate, we have always been destined for a Mektoub, My Love: Canto Tre. While Intermezzo waits for its theatrical premiere in France, potentially a different, edited version of what was seen at Cannes (the film is apparently circulating on bootleg DVDs amongst the North-African population in France), conversations suggest Kechiche’s third chapter in the ongoing Mektoub saga is ready for a festival premiere.…...
The conflict continues surrounding the impending theatrical release of Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2019 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (read review), which premiered in competition at Cannes to divisive responses and widespread critical consternation. Nevertheless, as the title of his past two Mektoub films would indicate, we have always been destined for a Mektoub, My Love: Canto Tre. While Intermezzo waits for its theatrical premiere in France, potentially a different, edited version of what was seen at Cannes (the film is apparently circulating on bootleg DVDs amongst the North-African population in France), conversations suggest Kechiche’s third chapter in the ongoing Mektoub saga is ready for a festival premiere.…...
- 1/2/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
One of the strangest and most vexing things about reviewing movies for a trade paper like Variety — which involves covering films at festivals and markets, as opposed to those consumer newspaper critics who follow the theatrical release schedule — is the fact that so many of the films we cover don’t have U.S. distribution at the moment we write about them. That’s the whole reason Variety is there: to give buyers, agents, and festival programmers an idea of where the quality lies. But it can be surreal to read (or write!) a rave review a movie that may never reach a movie theater near you.
Sometimes an enthusiastic critic can nudge a company into taking the risk on a foreign gem, but more often than not, the marketplace is too tough for a review to make a difference in a tiny film’s fate. And so the films...
Sometimes an enthusiastic critic can nudge a company into taking the risk on a foreign gem, but more often than not, the marketplace is too tough for a review to make a difference in a tiny film’s fate. And so the films...
- 1/2/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is like a moving painting. But it's even more transfixing when its characters' interior lives hold you still.
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There is much talk about the standards and shackles of convention in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This should not be a surprise since the exquisitely realized film from writer-director Céline Sciamma follows a young painter in the 18th century who is assigned the task of crafting a portrait literally intended for the male gaze. But just as this woman and her living subject debate the merit of aesthetic truth, and the fleeting quality of an individual’s essence, the film itself is a triumph in unconventional, honest moviemaking.
Constructing a slow boil romance between two women whose shared words barely rise above an innocuous simmer, Sciamma creates a vision as detailed as the best of 18th century artistry. The toast of...
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There is much talk about the standards and shackles of convention in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This should not be a surprise since the exquisitely realized film from writer-director Céline Sciamma follows a young painter in the 18th century who is assigned the task of crafting a portrait literally intended for the male gaze. But just as this woman and her living subject debate the merit of aesthetic truth, and the fleeting quality of an individual’s essence, the film itself is a triumph in unconventional, honest moviemaking.
Constructing a slow boil romance between two women whose shared words barely rise above an innocuous simmer, Sciamma creates a vision as detailed as the best of 18th century artistry. The toast of...
- 9/27/2019
- Den of Geek
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