Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you intend to watch the film.
Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski isn’t afraid of the subject of his latest film “Fools,” even though he focuses on an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son, played by Dorota Kolak and Łukasz Simlat.
“It was never my intention to shock anyone. I just wanted to tell the story of the hardest love of all,” the Polish director tells Variety.
“Fools,” produced by Extreme Emotions and lensed by Romanian Dp Oleg Mutu, is set to premiere in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s new section Proxima. New Europe Film Sales is handling the sales.
“I was wondering what would happen if someone close to me came to me now, saying they were in a similar relationship. I guess, and I can only guess, that at this point in my life, it wouldn’t be a problem,...
Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski isn’t afraid of the subject of his latest film “Fools,” even though he focuses on an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son, played by Dorota Kolak and Łukasz Simlat.
“It was never my intention to shock anyone. I just wanted to tell the story of the hardest love of all,” the Polish director tells Variety.
“Fools,” produced by Extreme Emotions and lensed by Romanian Dp Oleg Mutu, is set to premiere in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s new section Proxima. New Europe Film Sales is handling the sales.
“I was wondering what would happen if someone close to me came to me now, saying they were in a similar relationship. I guess, and I can only guess, that at this point in my life, it wouldn’t be a problem,...
- 7/4/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Polish filmmaker’s latest work world premieres at Karlovy Vary.
Fools is the latest feature from Polish filmmaker Tomasz Wasilewski whose previous films include Floating Skyscrapers and United States Of Love, which won the Silver Bear for best script at the 2016 Berlinale.
Fools is debuting in the Proxima competition at Karlovy Vary, and centres around a couple, played by Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat, who live a contentedly secluded lifestyle in a house by the coast. But when the woman brings her sick son to come and live with them, the façade of their relationship begins to crumble around them...
Fools is the latest feature from Polish filmmaker Tomasz Wasilewski whose previous films include Floating Skyscrapers and United States Of Love, which won the Silver Bear for best script at the 2016 Berlinale.
Fools is debuting in the Proxima competition at Karlovy Vary, and centres around a couple, played by Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat, who live a contentedly secluded lifestyle in a house by the coast. But when the woman brings her sick son to come and live with them, the façade of their relationship begins to crumble around them...
- 7/1/2022
- by Laurence Boyce
- ScreenDaily
Tomasz Wasilewski’s “Fools” (Głupcy) has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Proxima Competition. World sales are being handled by Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales.
Wasilewski won the best script award for “United States of Love” at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, and the East of West Award at Karlovy Vary in 2013 for “Floating Skyscrapers.”
“Fools” follows Marlena and Tomasz, hidden away from the world in a small seaside town, who have been in a happy relationship for many years. Their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to unravel when, against Tomasz’s wishes, Marlena allows her sick son to move in with them. As the past comes back to them in full force they will have to redefine their love, choices and life.
Karlovy Vary’s Lenka Tyrpáková commented: “After the triumph of his previous film ‘United States of Love,...
Wasilewski won the best script award for “United States of Love” at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, and the East of West Award at Karlovy Vary in 2013 for “Floating Skyscrapers.”
“Fools” follows Marlena and Tomasz, hidden away from the world in a small seaside town, who have been in a happy relationship for many years. Their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to unravel when, against Tomasz’s wishes, Marlena allows her sick son to move in with them. As the past comes back to them in full force they will have to redefine their love, choices and life.
Karlovy Vary’s Lenka Tyrpáková commented: “After the triumph of his previous film ‘United States of Love,...
- 6/28/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
When I’m reviewing a movie, I try to go in cold. I want my criticism to come as organically as possible. I don’t want other people’s opinions (or even a plot synopsis or trailer) to color my perspective. This was not the correct move for “Donbass,” the latest drama from director Sergey Loznitsa.
The film takes place in 2014, at the dawn of pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine that has snowballed into the war we see dominating front pages today. It is an incredibly specific satire that, unless you are aware of the precise ideologies of Eastern Ukraine and their weak points, may not immediately register as a satire at all. After my first screening of “Donbass” (and a few minutes of confused silence), I had to contact a friend who is a scholar of Eurasian studies, do some of my own research, and then watch it again.
This...
The film takes place in 2014, at the dawn of pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine that has snowballed into the war we see dominating front pages today. It is an incredibly specific satire that, unless you are aware of the precise ideologies of Eastern Ukraine and their weak points, may not immediately register as a satire at all. After my first screening of “Donbass” (and a few minutes of confused silence), I had to contact a friend who is a scholar of Eurasian studies, do some of my own research, and then watch it again.
This...
- 4/8/2022
- by Lena Wilson
- The Wrap
Imagine making two movies at exactly the same time.
That’s exactly what Romanian-born, New York-based director Bogdan George Apetri did while making “Miracle,” which played last week in the feature film competition at the Zurich Film Festival shortly after world premiering at Venice.
Filmed in Romania, “Miracle” is the second part of a trilogy of films written and directed by Apetri, and was recently picked up by Memento International. The first part, “Unidentified,” won the Special Jury Prize at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2020.
Both are self-contained stories, but feature many of the same characters and are filmed in and around the same Romanian town. “We literally shot three days on one movie, two days on the other,” says Apetri. “Some days we shot ‘Unidentified’ up to lunch, and then we shot ‘Miracle’ – or vice versa.”
It was a crazy and intense, 40-day experience, says Apetri, who also teaches...
That’s exactly what Romanian-born, New York-based director Bogdan George Apetri did while making “Miracle,” which played last week in the feature film competition at the Zurich Film Festival shortly after world premiering at Venice.
Filmed in Romania, “Miracle” is the second part of a trilogy of films written and directed by Apetri, and was recently picked up by Memento International. The first part, “Unidentified,” won the Special Jury Prize at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2020.
Both are self-contained stories, but feature many of the same characters and are filmed in and around the same Romanian town. “We literally shot three days on one movie, two days on the other,” says Apetri. “Some days we shot ‘Unidentified’ up to lunch, and then we shot ‘Miracle’ – or vice versa.”
It was a crazy and intense, 40-day experience, says Apetri, who also teaches...
- 10/3/2021
- by Tim Dams
- Variety Film + TV
Miracle is Romania’s first entry to a competitive section of Venice in 12 years.
Memento international has boarded sales on New York-based Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri’s third feature Miracle ahead of its world premiere in Venice’s Horizons section in September.
Divided into two chapters, the crime tale opens on a young nun who sneaks out of her isolated monastery to attend to an urgent matter but never makes it back.
The second chapter follows a police detective’s investigation into her fate, which uncovers clues and revelations that lead not only to an unfathomable truth but possibly,...
Memento international has boarded sales on New York-based Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri’s third feature Miracle ahead of its world premiere in Venice’s Horizons section in September.
Divided into two chapters, the crime tale opens on a young nun who sneaks out of her isolated monastery to attend to an urgent matter but never makes it back.
The second chapter follows a police detective’s investigation into her fate, which uncovers clues and revelations that lead not only to an unfathomable truth but possibly,...
- 7/27/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
French distributor Arp has acquired the rights to “Fools,” an upcoming drama by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski (“United States of Love”). Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales brokered the deal.
“Fools” is the story of Marlena and Tomasz, who are hidden away from the world in a small seaside town and have been in a happy relationship for many years. But when Marlena allows her son to move in with them against Tomasz’s will, the past comes back to haunt them, and their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to come apart.
“We were extremely impressed by the powerful way the director brings us along with him on such a powerful journey,” said Arp’s Michele Halberstadt. “The film is beautifully composed, and the lead actress is just mesmerizing. It is the kind of film that commands you to watch it. Tough at times,...
“Fools” is the story of Marlena and Tomasz, who are hidden away from the world in a small seaside town and have been in a happy relationship for many years. But when Marlena allows her son to move in with them against Tomasz’s will, the past comes back to haunt them, and their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to come apart.
“We were extremely impressed by the powerful way the director brings us along with him on such a powerful journey,” said Arp’s Michele Halberstadt. “The film is beautifully composed, and the lead actress is just mesmerizing. It is the kind of film that commands you to watch it. Tough at times,...
- 7/8/2021
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
The Latvian-Estonian co-production, set for release at the end of 2021, wrapped principal photography on 9 September. Stanislavs Tokalovs' sophomore feature, Lovable, is now in post-production. It follows the helmer's debut, What Nobody Can See, a psychological drama with elements of science fiction, produced by Ego Media and released in 2017. The story, penned by Tokalovs in tandem with Waldemar Kalinowski, revolves around a young man called Matīss (played by Kārlis Arnolds Avots), who has difficulty forming relationships based on love and trust. Only when he has to take care of a little girl called Paula (Paula Labāne) does he become more sensitive and responsive to the world around him. Alongside Avots and young Labāne, the main cast members are Kristīne Krūze Hermane, Vilis Daudziņš, Andris Keišs, Gundars Āboliņš, Elīna Vaska and Regnārs Vaivars. Romanian DoP Oleg Mutu is attached as the feature's DoP, whilst Laura Dišlere (Oleg,...
Romanian-born filmmaker Bogdan George Apetri has made a life for himself in New York City, since moving there 19 years ago to study film at Columbia University, where he now teaches. But for the director whose second feature film, “Unidentified,” plays in the Meet the Neighbors competition this week at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greece’s second city has a special meaning.
It was in Thessaloniki that Apetri’s debut, “Outbound,” took home the Golden Alexander for best feature film 10 years ago, shortly after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “I love Thessaloniki because it’s close to my heart,” he told Variety. “Of course, now I can see [Greece] is much closer to the Balkan experience, so for a Romanian film—people in Greece will respond in a different way than in America.”
“Unidentified” is the story of a hot-headed cop (Bogdan Farcaș) who grows fixated on cracking open a...
It was in Thessaloniki that Apetri’s debut, “Outbound,” took home the Golden Alexander for best feature film 10 years ago, shortly after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “I love Thessaloniki because it’s close to my heart,” he told Variety. “Of course, now I can see [Greece] is much closer to the Balkan experience, so for a Romanian film—people in Greece will respond in a different way than in America.”
“Unidentified” is the story of a hot-headed cop (Bogdan Farcaș) who grows fixated on cracking open a...
- 11/9/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Brooklyn-born and based David Gutnik has been chipping away at Russian American (formerly Brighton Beach) since 2016, with post perhaps being further delayed because of editing duties on Christina Choe‘s Sundance winner Nancy (here is a glimpse of him at the world preem). Landing British singer Fka Twigs (Tahliah Debrett Barnett) for the lead role (she is supposedly adding some of her tracks), and employing the services of cinematographer Oleg Mutu this crime drama also includes players Barney Harris, Costa Ronin, Sofia Vassilieva and Michael Kingsbaker.
Gist: This follows the rivalry between a family-run medical practice and a local mob boss caught up in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud racket.…...
Gist: This follows the rivalry between a family-run medical practice and a local mob boss caught up in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud racket.…...
- 11/22/2018
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass forms a rough trilogy with two of his previous features, My Joy (2010) and A Gentle Creature (2017), offering another social allegory that functions as a bitter criticism of Russia’s contemporary politics. This time, instead of an unidentified Russian setting, the action takes place in the eastern Ukrainian region that gives the film its title, where a Russian-supported war has been ongoing since 2014. Given that Loznitsa is Ukrainian, this change of scenery might explain the added ferocity of his critique, which is extreme enough to make for an acutely oppressive viewing experience.
Donbass‘s world is very similar to the other chapters in this trilogy. The social contract has been so worn away by the invisible powers that be, society has regressed to a state of nature ruled by violence and corruption. That a war is raging doesn’t actually change much, except provide a convenient excuse for abuse,...
Donbass‘s world is very similar to the other chapters in this trilogy. The social contract has been so worn away by the invisible powers that be, society has regressed to a state of nature ruled by violence and corruption. That a war is raging doesn’t actually change much, except provide a convenient excuse for abuse,...
- 5/19/2018
- by Giovanni Marchini Camia
- The Film Stage
After stirring up the Cannes crowd last year with A Gentle Creature, which told the story of a woman in search of the truth about her husband’s fate in a Russian prison, Sergei Loznitsa returns to Croisette in the Un Certain Regard section with Donbass.
Donbass is an area in Eastern Ukraine. Set in the winter of 2013-14, the film is about an internal conflict between fighting factions: whether they are old-school Communists, separatists or nationalists, predominantly they are criminals and thugs. The setting could be about pretty much any conflict in almost any region. There but for the grace of God go we… If A Gentle Creature was all about a woman searching for truth, then this film is all about men creating lies and fake news. We see pseudo bombings with locals used as extras, we see a bizarre wedding that is more a farce than an act of love,...
Donbass is an area in Eastern Ukraine. Set in the winter of 2013-14, the film is about an internal conflict between fighting factions: whether they are old-school Communists, separatists or nationalists, predominantly they are criminals and thugs. The setting could be about pretty much any conflict in almost any region. There but for the grace of God go we… If A Gentle Creature was all about a woman searching for truth, then this film is all about men creating lies and fake news. We see pseudo bombings with locals used as extras, we see a bizarre wedding that is more a farce than an act of love,...
- 5/11/2018
- by Jo-Ann Titmarsh
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
There is no job more thankless than the prophet of doom, nor one more necessary. Prescient commentators rant about the degradation of civil society, yet in an age when every conflict can be accessed or flicked away with the swipe of a finger on a smartphone, such cries of injustice generally constitute just another shout in the wind. The compunction to tell the truth remains, which is why Sergei Loznitsa’s body of work is so indispensable: It refuses to be complacent. The Ukrainian director’s “Donbass” is a natural follow-up to “A Gentle Creature”: Though the two have little in common stylistically, they’re both screams against a society that’s lost its humanity and can’t be bothered to care.
Seamlessly divided into 13 segments, “Donbass” recounts the corrosive nature of the conflict pitting Ukrainian nationalists against supporters of Russia’s proxy Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.
Seamlessly divided into 13 segments, “Donbass” recounts the corrosive nature of the conflict pitting Ukrainian nationalists against supporters of Russia’s proxy Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.
- 5/9/2018
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
The film follows three dancers who reunite 25 years after they split up.
Veteran Russian director and screenwriter Aleksandr Mindadze is plotting English-language drama Parquet.
The film is the story of three dancers, the creators of the tango à trois, who reunite for an encore performance 25 years after breaking up.
Mindadze’s credits include 2011 drama Innocent Saturday, which premiered in Berlin, and 2007 drama Soaring, which premiered in Venice. He has previously written the screenplays for Vadim Abdrashitov’s Plumbum, which was in competition in Venice in 1987, and Vadim Abdrashitov’s A Play For A Passenger, which won a Silver Bear in...
Veteran Russian director and screenwriter Aleksandr Mindadze is plotting English-language drama Parquet.
The film is the story of three dancers, the creators of the tango à trois, who reunite for an encore performance 25 years after breaking up.
Mindadze’s credits include 2011 drama Innocent Saturday, which premiered in Berlin, and 2007 drama Soaring, which premiered in Venice. He has previously written the screenplays for Vadim Abdrashitov’s Plumbum, which was in competition in Venice in 1987, and Vadim Abdrashitov’s A Play For A Passenger, which won a Silver Bear in...
- 5/8/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Often a film filled with overwhelming drudgery can be cured of its sickening length by re-writes or skilled editing. One of the greatest aspects of the filmmaking process is the drive, from everyone involved, to refine and improve the product. But this appears to be absent from A Gentle Creature, the second dip into fiction-filmmaking from documentarian Sergei Loznitsa.
The film follows an unnamed Russian woman (Vasilina Makovtseva), whose husband is locked up in a Siberian jail for reasons never made entirely clear. She sends a care package to him, which is promptly sent back without explanation. Thus begins her stretched odyssey into the bureaucratic alleyways of a weird Russian society, deeply listening to other people’s harrowing experiences and plunging into strange and troubling nightmares – all to deliver the package, and to maybe even see her husband.
The film starts in the slow, picturesque manner that many great Russian...
The film follows an unnamed Russian woman (Vasilina Makovtseva), whose husband is locked up in a Siberian jail for reasons never made entirely clear. She sends a care package to him, which is promptly sent back without explanation. Thus begins her stretched odyssey into the bureaucratic alleyways of a weird Russian society, deeply listening to other people’s harrowing experiences and plunging into strange and troubling nightmares – all to deliver the package, and to maybe even see her husband.
The film starts in the slow, picturesque manner that many great Russian...
- 3/29/2018
- by Euan Franklin
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
“Man is a wolf to his fellow man,” quotes a character early in Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature. The ordeal suffered by its protagonist will indeed be solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish – it won’t be short, however. Powerful though bloated, A Gentle Creature is a companion to Loznitsa’s phenomenal first narrative feature, My Joy, once again following a person’s nightmarish odyssey through an allegorical rendition of post-Communist Russia. Though not as successful as its predecessor, Loznitsa’s latest nonetheless confirms the director’s place of honor amongst cinema’s most vociferous critics of Putin’s kingdom.
A Gentle Creature might borrow its title from a short story by Dostoevsky, but the relation between the two is even less apparent than between Loznitsa’s last outing, Austerlitz, and the W.G. Sebald novel of the same name. A much more obvious literary influence is Kafka. In lieu of an impenetrable castle,...
A Gentle Creature might borrow its title from a short story by Dostoevsky, but the relation between the two is even less apparent than between Loznitsa’s last outing, Austerlitz, and the W.G. Sebald novel of the same name. A much more obvious literary influence is Kafka. In lieu of an impenetrable castle,...
- 5/25/2017
- by Giovanni Marchini Camia
- The Film Stage
IndieWire reached out to the filmmakers whose films (and TV shows!) are premiering at the Cannes Film Festival to find out what cameras they used and, more importantly, why they were the right tools to create their projects.
Read More: Cannes 2017 – 22 Films We Can’t Wait to See at This Year’s Festival
Before we dive into the details, here’s three big trends that we saw in their answers:
1. Shooting on film continues its comeback around the globe.
2. Arri continues its digital dominance in the narrative feature film space. We saw this at Sundance as well: Increasingly, smaller productions with the need to be flexible and mobile are turning to the small-bodied Alexa Mini.
3. Filmmakers are applying unique techniques to create different looks. From the Safdie Brothers adapting the 2-perf method of the old spaghetti westerns, to “Wonderstruck” mirroring the shooting style of the ’20s and ’70s, to Sean Baker...
Read More: Cannes 2017 – 22 Films We Can’t Wait to See at This Year’s Festival
Before we dive into the details, here’s three big trends that we saw in their answers:
1. Shooting on film continues its comeback around the globe.
2. Arri continues its digital dominance in the narrative feature film space. We saw this at Sundance as well: Increasingly, smaller productions with the need to be flexible and mobile are turning to the small-bodied Alexa Mini.
3. Filmmakers are applying unique techniques to create different looks. From the Safdie Brothers adapting the 2-perf method of the old spaghetti westerns, to “Wonderstruck” mirroring the shooting style of the ’20s and ’70s, to Sean Baker...
- 5/17/2017
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
Four women living in Poland as the Soviet empire falls are oppressed by joyless sex and yearning in Tomasz Wasilewski’s unnervingly sad and icy film
Tomasz Wasilewski brings an icy compositional control to this piercingly sad, strange and unnerving film, about a quartet of lives immersed in toxic obsession and thwarted erotic yearning. It concludes on a stab of what I can only describe as horror and despair. This film is not here to make you feel good. But it has a soap-operatic watchability. Poland in 1990 is the setting, just as the Soviet empire is collapsing. But so far from experiencing a liberation, the characters are only further oppressed by inner desperation, and the title is not entirely ironic. They are in fact “united” by very similar symptoms. There is a kind of eroticised sickness in the air, a compulsive, joyless need for sex. Agata (Julia Kijowska) has a...
Tomasz Wasilewski brings an icy compositional control to this piercingly sad, strange and unnerving film, about a quartet of lives immersed in toxic obsession and thwarted erotic yearning. It concludes on a stab of what I can only describe as horror and despair. This film is not here to make you feel good. But it has a soap-operatic watchability. Poland in 1990 is the setting, just as the Soviet empire is collapsing. But so far from experiencing a liberation, the characters are only further oppressed by inner desperation, and the title is not entirely ironic. They are in fact “united” by very similar symptoms. There is a kind of eroticised sickness in the air, a compulsive, joyless need for sex. Agata (Julia Kijowska) has a...
- 11/17/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: Singer co-stars in movie produced by Birdman and Tulip Fever executive Molly Connners.
British singer FKA Twigs is to make her movie debut in Us crime-drama Brighton Beach, which is being produced by Birdman executive Molly Conners.
Currently in post-production, the under-the-radar contemporary feature follows the rivalry between a family-run medical practice and a local mob boss caught up in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud racket.
Twigs will co-star opposite rising UK actor Barney Harris, whose first roles include appearances in Ang Lee’s upcoming awards hopeful Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and hit UK TV series The Hollow Crown.
Also featuring among cast are Costa Ronin (The Americans), Sofia Vassilieva (Medium) and Michael Kingsbaker.
Currently in post-production, the film marks the feature debut of Russian-American writer-director David Gutnik who previously lived in the film’s eponymous Brooklyn neighbourhood and whose previous credits as editor include Four and Heartlock.
DoP is acclaimed...
British singer FKA Twigs is to make her movie debut in Us crime-drama Brighton Beach, which is being produced by Birdman executive Molly Conners.
Currently in post-production, the under-the-radar contemporary feature follows the rivalry between a family-run medical practice and a local mob boss caught up in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud racket.
Twigs will co-star opposite rising UK actor Barney Harris, whose first roles include appearances in Ang Lee’s upcoming awards hopeful Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and hit UK TV series The Hollow Crown.
Also featuring among cast are Costa Ronin (The Americans), Sofia Vassilieva (Medium) and Michael Kingsbaker.
Currently in post-production, the film marks the feature debut of Russian-American writer-director David Gutnik who previously lived in the film’s eponymous Brooklyn neighbourhood and whose previous credits as editor include Four and Heartlock.
DoP is acclaimed...
- 7/19/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Certain Women: Wasilewski Explores Enlightenment and Despair
It was 1990, and the climate was changing. Or so begins Polish director Tomas Wasilewski’s third feature, United States of Love, which chooses to focus on four somewhat related women from the same apartment complex during significant political changes during the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Accompanying their growing sense of freedom is a nagging element of dissatisfaction as they attempt to pursue fantasies and desires, often resulting in a disquieting mix of euphoria and despair. Arrestingly photographed in flat, sterile palettes with intermittent splotches of vibrant color, theirs is a universe just experiencing the tingle of life following deadening paralysis, with emotions like reawakened limbs still struggling to obtain an originally appointed purpose. Coldly observational, the film is sometimes curiously unsympathetic in its depiction of women experiencing glancing notions of freedom but hopelessly realized they’re still chained to incredibly limiting options.
It was 1990, and the climate was changing. Or so begins Polish director Tomas Wasilewski’s third feature, United States of Love, which chooses to focus on four somewhat related women from the same apartment complex during significant political changes during the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Accompanying their growing sense of freedom is a nagging element of dissatisfaction as they attempt to pursue fantasies and desires, often resulting in a disquieting mix of euphoria and despair. Arrestingly photographed in flat, sterile palettes with intermittent splotches of vibrant color, theirs is a universe just experiencing the tingle of life following deadening paralysis, with emotions like reawakened limbs still struggling to obtain an originally appointed purpose. Coldly observational, the film is sometimes curiously unsympathetic in its depiction of women experiencing glancing notions of freedom but hopelessly realized they’re still chained to incredibly limiting options.
- 2/26/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales also secures deals for Italy and Brazil.
Polish drama United States Of Love (Zjednoczone stany miłości) has been snapped up by four major territories following its world premiere in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won director/writer Tomasz Wasilewski the Silver Bear for best script.
Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to the UK (Matchbox), France (Sophie Dulac Distribution), Italy (Cinema Slr) and Brazil (Imovision).
This adds to previous deals secured for Spain (Golem), Greece (Strada), Ex-Yugoslava (McS), Benelux (Contact), Sweden (Triart), Portugal (Films4You), South Korea (Brandon Young Ent.), Turkey (Bir), Switzerland (Xenix), Bulgaria (Bulgaria Film Vision) and Taiwan (Flash Forward).
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the...
Polish drama United States Of Love (Zjednoczone stany miłości) has been snapped up by four major territories following its world premiere in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won director/writer Tomasz Wasilewski the Silver Bear for best script.
Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to the UK (Matchbox), France (Sophie Dulac Distribution), Italy (Cinema Slr) and Brazil (Imovision).
This adds to previous deals secured for Spain (Golem), Greece (Strada), Ex-Yugoslava (McS), Benelux (Contact), Sweden (Triart), Portugal (Films4You), South Korea (Brandon Young Ent.), Turkey (Bir), Switzerland (Xenix), Bulgaria (Bulgaria Film Vision) and Taiwan (Flash Forward).
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the...
- 2/24/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
It’s the dawn of a new era in ’90s Poland. The Wall is no more; ideas, news, and commodities from the West are coming in hard and fast, along with messages from family members working in West Germany, taped-over pornos on VHS. Yet those vague promises of freedom also reveal a disquieting undercurrent and the sense that, whatever the future may bring, there’s a harsh present that still needs to be reckoned with.
This is especially apparent in the isolated town that Tomasz Wasilewski picks as the setting of his austerely accomplished third feature United States of Love — removed from the city and shot grey-on-grey against miles of wintry landscapes, these apartment complexes feel like a world of their own. A world that those seeking change, consciously or otherwise, will also find capable of oppressively folding onto itself.
Perfectly summed up by the local priest (“Lord, I bring to you my narrow borders.
This is especially apparent in the isolated town that Tomasz Wasilewski picks as the setting of his austerely accomplished third feature United States of Love — removed from the city and shot grey-on-grey against miles of wintry landscapes, these apartment complexes feel like a world of their own. A world that those seeking change, consciously or otherwise, will also find capable of oppressively folding onto itself.
Perfectly summed up by the local priest (“Lord, I bring to you my narrow borders.
- 2/20/2016
- by Tommaso Tocci
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales secures hat-trick of deals for Polish Competition title.
Polish drama United States Of Love has secured a hat-trick of deals ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday (Feb 18).
Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to Greece (Strada), Spain (Golem) and ex-Yugoslavia (McF).
Naszewski confirmed there were further offers on the table from UK, France, Switzerland, Benelux.
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the third feature of director Tomasz Wasilewski after In A Bedroom (2012) and Floating Skyscrapers (2013). The latter received its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and won the East of the West debut competition at Karlovy Vary.
The director...
Polish drama United States Of Love has secured a hat-trick of deals ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday (Feb 18).
Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to Greece (Strada), Spain (Golem) and ex-Yugoslavia (McF).
Naszewski confirmed there were further offers on the table from UK, France, Switzerland, Benelux.
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the third feature of director Tomasz Wasilewski after In A Bedroom (2012) and Floating Skyscrapers (2013). The latter received its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and won the East of the West debut competition at Karlovy Vary.
The director...
- 2/15/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Polish drama directed by Floating Skyscapers filmmaker Tomasz Wasilewski.
United States of Love, a Polish drama that has been selected to play in Competition at the Berlinale (Feb 11-21), has been acquired by Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the third feature of director Tomasz Wasilewski after In The Bedroom (2012) and Floating Skyscrapers (2013). The latter received its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and won the East of the West debut competition at Karlovy Vary.
The director of photography is is Oleg Mutu, known for his work on In the Fog, In Bloom and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.
United States of Love is a Polish-Swedish co-production of Manana, Commonground Pictures...
United States of Love, a Polish drama that has been selected to play in Competition at the Berlinale (Feb 11-21), has been acquired by Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales
Set in Poland in 1990 – the country’s first year of freedom following the fall of communism - the film tells a story of four women of different ages, who decide it is time to change their lives.
It marks the third feature of director Tomasz Wasilewski after In The Bedroom (2012) and Floating Skyscrapers (2013). The latter received its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and won the East of the West debut competition at Karlovy Vary.
The director of photography is is Oleg Mutu, known for his work on In the Fog, In Bloom and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.
United States of Love is a Polish-Swedish co-production of Manana, Commonground Pictures...
- 1/12/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Few parts of this world have contributed as much to the filmic language as Romania. As singular a national voice and aesthetic as they come, Romanian cinema has become a launching pad not only for some of modern cinema’s most entrancing filmmakers, but also some of the most exciting explorations of a culture that few have much genuine knowledge of. Be it the typically chilly photography or the even more isolating sense of dread many of their dramas have, or even the dry nature of their comedies, Romanian cinema is in a golden age, and has spent the last decade leading world cinema. And now one of this country’s great smaller scale film festivals marks a decade itself, as the 10th edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema is set to get under way. Here are the five films you absolutely can’t afford to miss.
Festival...
Festival...
- 12/2/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Estonian project Erik Stoneheart wins Screen Best Pitch Award.
Lithuania was the big winner at this year’s Baltic Event when the awards were handed out during a ceremony in Tallinn’s historical town centre on Tuesday evening.
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award - with a non-reimbursable subsidy of €20,000 to be used exclusively to cover project development costs - was presented for the first time this year in Tallinn.
A jury consisting of Petri Kemppinen, CEO of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, and Dorien van de Pas, head of New Screen Nl and a consultant for talent development at the Netherlands Film Fund, chose the feature debut project Motherland by American Film Institute graduate Tomas Vengris, the son of Lithuanian immigrants living in the Us
The €950,000 coming of age story will be produced by Uljana Kim’s Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim and already has Locomotive Productions from neighbouring Latvia attached as a co-producer...
Lithuania was the big winner at this year’s Baltic Event when the awards were handed out during a ceremony in Tallinn’s historical town centre on Tuesday evening.
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award - with a non-reimbursable subsidy of €20,000 to be used exclusively to cover project development costs - was presented for the first time this year in Tallinn.
A jury consisting of Petri Kemppinen, CEO of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, and Dorien van de Pas, head of New Screen Nl and a consultant for talent development at the Netherlands Film Fund, chose the feature debut project Motherland by American Film Institute graduate Tomas Vengris, the son of Lithuanian immigrants living in the Us
The €950,000 coming of age story will be produced by Uljana Kim’s Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim and already has Locomotive Productions from neighbouring Latvia attached as a co-producer...
- 11/18/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days") shot "Family Photos" (Fotografii de familie) under the radar from June 11 to July 24, 2015. Adrian Titieni ("Best Intentions," 4Proof Film) is starring in the leading role.
Mungiu's latest film is a family drama about parenting set in a small Romanian town where everybody knows everybody. It is the first feature in which Mungiu focuses on a male protagonist, a doctor. The cast includes Lia Bugnar and Vlad Ivanov. Shooting took place mostly in the town of Victoria, but the story is not set in that city. Thistime around Mungiu didn't work his long time collaborator Oleg Mutu, instead chose young cinematographer Tudor Panduru.
The project received a production grant of approximately 430,000 Eur/1.91 m Ron from the National Film Center at the beginning of 2015, the highest funding for a feature film in that session. The director told Fne at the end of March 2015 that he hoped to work again with the coproducers he had for Academy Award-shortlisted "Beyond the Hills."
"Beyond the Hills" was produced by Mungiu through Mobra Films in coproduction with Why Not Production, Wild Bunch, Les Films du Fleuve (www.lesfilmdufleuve.be), France 3 Cinéma (www.france3.fr) and Mandragora Movies Romania.
Mungiu's latest film is a family drama about parenting set in a small Romanian town where everybody knows everybody. It is the first feature in which Mungiu focuses on a male protagonist, a doctor. The cast includes Lia Bugnar and Vlad Ivanov. Shooting took place mostly in the town of Victoria, but the story is not set in that city. Thistime around Mungiu didn't work his long time collaborator Oleg Mutu, instead chose young cinematographer Tudor Panduru.
The project received a production grant of approximately 430,000 Eur/1.91 m Ron from the National Film Center at the beginning of 2015, the highest funding for a feature film in that session. The director told Fne at the end of March 2015 that he hoped to work again with the coproducers he had for Academy Award-shortlisted "Beyond the Hills."
"Beyond the Hills" was produced by Mungiu through Mobra Films in coproduction with Why Not Production, Wild Bunch, Les Films du Fleuve (www.lesfilmdufleuve.be), France 3 Cinéma (www.france3.fr) and Mandragora Movies Romania.
- 8/13/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Producers from Finland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland and Russia picked up awards at this year’s 13th Baltic Event co-production market (Nov 24-28) in Tallinn.
Finnish comedy Impaled Rektum by feature debutants Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio was awarded the Screen International Best Pitch Award.
The €1.4m production about a young loser trying to overcome his stage fright and other fears by leading the worst heavy band of Finland, Impaled Rektum, to the hottest metal festival in Norway, will be produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho of Helsinki-based Making Movies Oy.
This is the second time that Nordberg and Aho have received Screen’s Best Pitch Award after having previously been selected with Petri Kotwica’s Rat King which then went on to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Other past winners of the award include Alexei German’s Under Electric Clouds, which is understood to be premiering at a major international film festival soon, and...
Finnish comedy Impaled Rektum by feature debutants Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio was awarded the Screen International Best Pitch Award.
The €1.4m production about a young loser trying to overcome his stage fright and other fears by leading the worst heavy band of Finland, Impaled Rektum, to the hottest metal festival in Norway, will be produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho of Helsinki-based Making Movies Oy.
This is the second time that Nordberg and Aho have received Screen’s Best Pitch Award after having previously been selected with Petri Kotwica’s Rat King which then went on to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Other past winners of the award include Alexei German’s Under Electric Clouds, which is understood to be premiering at a major international film festival soon, and...
- 11/28/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Russia big winner at FilmFestival Cottbus for second consecutive year.
Russia was the big winner for the second year in a row at the FilmFestival Cottbus with Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s Corrections Class picking up four awards at the weekend.
The feature debut received the International Jury’s main prize ¨for its unsentimental and unpretentious presentation of a powerful social theme presented through the prism of an excellent ensemble performance¨, thereby qualifying for the Connecting Cottbus Special Pitch Award, which will allow Tverdovsky and his producers to pitch a new project at the East-West co-production market in a year’s time.
Tverdovsky’s Russian-German co-production, which won the Best Debut prize at Kinotavr in Sochi and the East of the West Award in Karlovy Vary, also picked up the prizes from the Fipresci and Interfilm juries in Cottbus.
Last year, the main prize at Cottbus went to Russian director Alexander Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe...
Russia was the big winner for the second year in a row at the FilmFestival Cottbus with Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s Corrections Class picking up four awards at the weekend.
The feature debut received the International Jury’s main prize ¨for its unsentimental and unpretentious presentation of a powerful social theme presented through the prism of an excellent ensemble performance¨, thereby qualifying for the Connecting Cottbus Special Pitch Award, which will allow Tverdovsky and his producers to pitch a new project at the East-West co-production market in a year’s time.
Tverdovsky’s Russian-German co-production, which won the Best Debut prize at Kinotavr in Sochi and the East of the West Award in Karlovy Vary, also picked up the prizes from the Fipresci and Interfilm juries in Cottbus.
Last year, the main prize at Cottbus went to Russian director Alexander Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe...
- 11/10/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Speaking at the Odessa Film Festival the producer of Sergey Mokritsky’s war drama Unbroken said that the project had now completed principal photography.
20th Century Fox and Universal are among the Us majors ¨in talks¨ to take on worldwide distribution for Sergey Mokritsky’s € 3.7m biopic/war drama Unbroken.
Speaking at this week’s Works in Progress showcase at the Odessa Film Industry Office, producer Egor Olesov of Kiev-based Kinorob said that the Ukrainian-Russian co-production - which had previously previously gone under the working title of The Battle Of Sevastopol - completed principal photography in Kiev on last Tuesday (July 15).
Expected to be a blockbuster success in Ukraine, the film recounts the story of student Lyudmila Pavilchenko who was a legendary sniper during the Second World War with 309 shots to her credit and later became friends with the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
In an interview with Russia’s Ria-Novosti , producer Natalia Mokritskaya said that the film...
20th Century Fox and Universal are among the Us majors ¨in talks¨ to take on worldwide distribution for Sergey Mokritsky’s € 3.7m biopic/war drama Unbroken.
Speaking at this week’s Works in Progress showcase at the Odessa Film Industry Office, producer Egor Olesov of Kiev-based Kinorob said that the Ukrainian-Russian co-production - which had previously previously gone under the working title of The Battle Of Sevastopol - completed principal photography in Kiev on last Tuesday (July 15).
Expected to be a blockbuster success in Ukraine, the film recounts the story of student Lyudmila Pavilchenko who was a legendary sniper during the Second World War with 309 shots to her credit and later became friends with the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
In an interview with Russia’s Ria-Novosti , producer Natalia Mokritskaya said that the film...
- 7/17/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Veteran UK producer Patrick Cassavetti has boarded Marat Alykulov’s black comedy Lenin?!.
Cassavetti, producer on Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas - agreed to become executive producer on the Kyrgyzstani project following talks in Cannes last month.
Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily at this year’s Moscow Business Square (Mbs), producer Joanna Bence of Curb Denizen Productions said that Cassavetti will also offer new ‘perks’ to the ‘Help Bury Lenin?!’ crowdfunding campaign by giving burgeoning filmmakers the chance to receive personal feedback on their past or upcoming productions.
Bence also revealed that German-born, London-based DoP Stephan Bookas - who has worked on Maleficent and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy - is confirmed as cinematographer for the project, which was pitched at the Mbs’s co-production forum last year after having been presented at Busan’s Asian Project Market and Connecting Cottbus in autumn 2012.
Together with Curb Denizen producer partner [link=nm...
Cassavetti, producer on Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas - agreed to become executive producer on the Kyrgyzstani project following talks in Cannes last month.
Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily at this year’s Moscow Business Square (Mbs), producer Joanna Bence of Curb Denizen Productions said that Cassavetti will also offer new ‘perks’ to the ‘Help Bury Lenin?!’ crowdfunding campaign by giving burgeoning filmmakers the chance to receive personal feedback on their past or upcoming productions.
Bence also revealed that German-born, London-based DoP Stephan Bookas - who has worked on Maleficent and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy - is confirmed as cinematographer for the project, which was pitched at the Mbs’s co-production forum last year after having been presented at Busan’s Asian Project Market and Connecting Cottbus in autumn 2012.
Together with Curb Denizen producer partner [link=nm...
- 6/23/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
The Transilvania International Film Festival’s (Tiff) main prize went this year to Spanish film-maker Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Stockholm as the week-long festival came to a close on June 8.
The second feature also picked up the Best Performance Award for leads Javier Pereira and Aura Garrido at the gala awards ceremony on Saturday evening (7).
Almost lost for words as he accepted the prize on the stage of Cluj’s National Theatre, an elated Sorogoyen (pictured) said that these were the film’s first international awards.
Stockholm previously earned best actress and new screenwriter honours in Malaga last year and a Goya this year for Pereira.
Tiff’s international jury including Chicago Film Festival director Michael Kutza, Nfts director Nik Powell and Hungarian film-maker Janos Szasz, presented their Best Directing Award to Poland’s Tomasz Wasilewski for his second feature Floating Skyscrapers and the Special Jury Award to Bulgaria’s Maya Vitkova for her debut Viktoria, which had its...
The second feature also picked up the Best Performance Award for leads Javier Pereira and Aura Garrido at the gala awards ceremony on Saturday evening (7).
Almost lost for words as he accepted the prize on the stage of Cluj’s National Theatre, an elated Sorogoyen (pictured) said that these were the film’s first international awards.
Stockholm previously earned best actress and new screenwriter honours in Malaga last year and a Goya this year for Pereira.
Tiff’s international jury including Chicago Film Festival director Michael Kutza, Nfts director Nik Powell and Hungarian film-maker Janos Szasz, presented their Best Directing Award to Poland’s Tomasz Wasilewski for his second feature Floating Skyscrapers and the Special Jury Award to Bulgaria’s Maya Vitkova for her debut Viktoria, which had its...
- 6/8/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Amir here, to welcome you back to Team Top Ten, our monthly poll by all of the website’s contributors. For our first episode in 2014, we are looking at The Greatest Working Cinematographers in the (international) film industry. As long time readers of The Film Experience are surely aware, the visual language of cinema is something Nathaniel and the rest of us are very fond of discussing. Films and filmmakers that have a dash of style and understand cinema as a visual medium always get bonus points around these parts. We celebrate great works in cinematography on a weekly basis in Hit Me With Your Best Shot, but it was time to give the people behind the camera their due.
More than 50 cinematographers from all across the world received votes. If the final, somewhat American-centric, list doesn’t quite reflect that, chalk it up to the natural process of consensus voting.
More than 50 cinematographers from all across the world received votes. If the final, somewhat American-centric, list doesn’t quite reflect that, chalk it up to the natural process of consensus voting.
- 4/5/2014
- by Amir S.
- FilmExperience
An Early Frost: Ekvtimishvili & Grob’s Debut a Memoir in Neorealism
The Georgian entry for 2014’s Best Foreign Language Film, In Bloom is the directorial debut of Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Grob, and is based on the former’s memories of childhood while growing up in 1992 war-torn Georgia. Previously, they made the 2007 film Fata Morgana together (yes, which shares the same name with the famed Herzog documentary), directed by Grob and written by Ekvtimishvili. Whilst set in a notably violent period in the country after its separation from the Soviet Union, leading to an unrest that sparked a three year civil war, it seems the bubble of the adolescent realm seems to supersede all even in the worst of times. But for young girls on the cusp of developing into well-adjusted young women amidst such tumultuous times seems next to impossible, female agency dashed upon the rocks of a...
The Georgian entry for 2014’s Best Foreign Language Film, In Bloom is the directorial debut of Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Grob, and is based on the former’s memories of childhood while growing up in 1992 war-torn Georgia. Previously, they made the 2007 film Fata Morgana together (yes, which shares the same name with the famed Herzog documentary), directed by Grob and written by Ekvtimishvili. Whilst set in a notably violent period in the country after its separation from the Soviet Union, leading to an unrest that sparked a three year civil war, it seems the bubble of the adolescent realm seems to supersede all even in the worst of times. But for young girls on the cusp of developing into well-adjusted young women amidst such tumultuous times seems next to impossible, female agency dashed upon the rocks of a...
- 1/12/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Among the 276 artists invited to join their ranks this year, the Academy including a pleasing selection of world cinema luminaries, ranging from recent first-time Oscar nominee Emmanuelle Riva to Romanian New Wave cinematographer Oleg Mutu. One name, however, that was particularly applauded from all sides was trailblazing Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi. Still serving a sentence of six years' house arrest for propaganda against the Iranian government, Panahi has made his last two features within these restrictions -- though in bold defiance of the government's decree that he not engage in any filmmaking activity for 20 years. The first of these,...
- 7/6/2013
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its 276-member-strong class of 2013.
The list, published by The Hollywood Reporter, includes actors, cinematographers, designers, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, makeup artists and hairstylists, "members-at-large," musicians, producers, PR folks, short filmmakers and animators, sound technicians, visual effects artists, and writers.
Jason Bateman, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Emily Mortimer, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, and Michael Peña are among the roster of actors, while "The Heat" and "Bridesmaids" helmer Paul Feig made the directors' cut.
"We did not change our criteria at all," says Academy president Hawk Koch of this year's larger-than-usual class. "Yes, this year there is a tremendous amount of women, a tremendous amount of people of color, people from all walks of life. This year, we asked the branches to look at everybody who wasn't in the Academy but who deserved to be.
The list, published by The Hollywood Reporter, includes actors, cinematographers, designers, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, makeup artists and hairstylists, "members-at-large," musicians, producers, PR folks, short filmmakers and animators, sound technicians, visual effects artists, and writers.
Jason Bateman, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Emily Mortimer, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, and Michael Peña are among the roster of actors, while "The Heat" and "Bridesmaids" helmer Paul Feig made the directors' cut.
"We did not change our criteria at all," says Academy president Hawk Koch of this year's larger-than-usual class. "Yes, this year there is a tremendous amount of women, a tremendous amount of people of color, people from all walks of life. This year, we asked the branches to look at everybody who wasn't in the Academy but who deserved to be.
- 7/4/2013
- by Laura Larson
- Moviefone
A crushing or mediocre review from this film trade magazine institution can certainly sink a film, but Variety’s Ten Euro Directors to Watch (now in it’s 16th year running at Karlovy Vary) certainly comes across as a hallmark card to new European talents and in need of a little extra love. And while this curated series won’t prevent the films from slipping the cracks (of the ten, I believe only a pair have U.S. distribution), the filmmakers, producers attached to the 10-pack are deservingly getting one more final push. Day 4′s catch was a fresh, unique, ballsy and brave one beginning with Tokyo Film Fest selected Nina from Italian helmer Elisa Fuksas features the unbelievably cute actress Diane Fleri playing the titular character on a duel journey: one about finding herself and finding a match. This wickedly different viewpoint of Rome is exquisitely shot – I adored the repetition of shots,...
- 7/3/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today the 276 members of the entertainment industry invited to join organization. The list includes actors, directors, documentarians, executives, film editors, producers and more. Of those listed below, those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy's membership in 2013. "These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today," said Academy President Hawk Koch in a press release. "Their talent and creativity have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, and I am proud to welcome each of them to the Academy." Koch also told Variety, "In the past eight or nine years, each branch could only bring in X amount of members. There were people each branch would have liked to get in but couldn't. We asked them to be more inclusive of the best of the best, and each branch was excited, because they got...
- 6/28/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Academy just added 276 Oscar voters.
That’s 100 more than last year, and part of an easing of a longstanding cap on the number of new members allowed to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences each year.
AMPAS usually adds between 130 and 180 new members, replacing those who have quit or passed away. The membership now stands around 6,000.
Jason Bateman, Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emmanuelle Riva, and Chris Tucker are among the actors who have been invited to join, the organization announced today.
Other interesting additions: the musician Prince, Girls and Tiny Furniture writer/director/actress Lena Dunham,...
That’s 100 more than last year, and part of an easing of a longstanding cap on the number of new members allowed to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences each year.
AMPAS usually adds between 130 and 180 new members, replacing those who have quit or passed away. The membership now stands around 6,000.
Jason Bateman, Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emmanuelle Riva, and Chris Tucker are among the actors who have been invited to join, the organization announced today.
Other interesting additions: the musician Prince, Girls and Tiny Furniture writer/director/actress Lena Dunham,...
- 6/28/2013
- by Anthony Breznican
- EW - Inside Movies
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 276 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2013.
“These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today,” said Academy President Hawk Koch. “Their talent and creativity have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, and I am proud to welcome each of them to the Academy.”
The 2013 invitees are:
Actors
Jason Bateman – “Up in the Air,” “Juno”
Miriam Colon – “City of Hope,” “Scarface”
Rosario Dawson – “Rent,” “Frank Miller’s Sin City”
Kimberly Elise – “For Colored Girls,” “Beloved”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – “Lincoln,” “The Dark Knight Rises”
Charles Grodin – “Midnight Run,” “The Heartbreak Kid”
Rebecca Hall – “Iron Man 3,” “The Town”
Lance Henriksen – “Aliens,” “The Terminator”
Jack Huston – “Not Fade Away,” “Factory Girl”
Milla Jovovich – “Resident Evil,...
“These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today,” said Academy President Hawk Koch. “Their talent and creativity have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, and I am proud to welcome each of them to the Academy.”
The 2013 invitees are:
Actors
Jason Bateman – “Up in the Air,” “Juno”
Miriam Colon – “City of Hope,” “Scarface”
Rosario Dawson – “Rent,” “Frank Miller’s Sin City”
Kimberly Elise – “For Colored Girls,” “Beloved”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – “Lincoln,” “The Dark Knight Rises”
Charles Grodin – “Midnight Run,” “The Heartbreak Kid”
Rebecca Hall – “Iron Man 3,” “The Town”
Lance Henriksen – “Aliens,” “The Terminator”
Jack Huston – “Not Fade Away,” “Factory Girl”
Milla Jovovich – “Resident Evil,...
- 6/28/2013
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 276 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2013. “These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today,” said Academy President Hawk Koch. “Their talent and creativity have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, and I am proud to welcome each of them to the Academy.” The 2013 invitees are: Actors Jason Bateman – “Up in the Air,” “Juno” Miriam Colon – “City of Hope,” “Scarface” Rosario Dawson – “Rent,” “Frank Miller’s Sin City” Kimberly Elise – “For Colored Girls,” “Beloved” Joseph Gordon-Levitt – “Lincoln,” “The Dark Knight Rises” Charles Grodin – “Midnight Run,” “The Heartbreak Kid” Rebecca Hall – “Iron Man 3,” “The Town” Lance Henriksen – “Aliens,” “The Terminator” Jack Huston – “Not Fade Away,” “Factory Girl” Milla Jovovich – “Resident Evil,...
- 6/28/2013
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
Sergei Loznitsa's stark parable about Soviet collaboration with the Nazis has echoes of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy, a fable about the increasingly nightmarish journey of a lorry driver lost in a violent post-communist Russia, was well received at Cannes three years ago but is yet to be released in this country. His second film, In the Fog, based on a highly regarded novel by Vasili Bykov, also received a warm welcome in Cannes and is one of the best Russian films to open in Britain over the past decade. It's set in Loznitsa's native Belarus in 1942, and the fog of the title is both literal and metaphorical, the fog of war that swirls around its three principal characters, Russians involved in the struggle against the German invaders.
In the Fog unfolds at a stately pace, beginning with a striking opening sequence shot in what appears...
Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy, a fable about the increasingly nightmarish journey of a lorry driver lost in a violent post-communist Russia, was well received at Cannes three years ago but is yet to be released in this country. His second film, In the Fog, based on a highly regarded novel by Vasili Bykov, also received a warm welcome in Cannes and is one of the best Russian films to open in Britain over the past decade. It's set in Loznitsa's native Belarus in 1942, and the fog of the title is both literal and metaphorical, the fog of war that swirls around its three principal characters, Russians involved in the struggle against the German invaders.
In the Fog unfolds at a stately pace, beginning with a striking opening sequence shot in what appears...
- 4/29/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
#89. Faruk Loncarevic’s Berina’s Chakras
Gist: A Sarajevo-set coming of ager, or rather, a self-declared “true” (as in ‘genuine’) coming-of-age story, in that it looks at the moment when we realize that we will cease to be someone’s child. Between Berina, who is 21, and her dying mother Jasna, a new, powerful hatred is born. Berina is a painter, and slowly the symbols go from her paintings into her life; people disappear, and only ghosts and signs of it and those that weren’t there remain.
Prediction: Bosnian director Faruk Lončarević (of the 2006, 65-minute feature Mum and Dad) started principal photography on this second feature last November, which is about as late as a film can begin shooting if it is to be considered a Cannes possibility. Selected way back in the 2009 CineMart crop at Rotterdam, this is a project that percolated for quite a while before cameras started rolling,...
Gist: A Sarajevo-set coming of ager, or rather, a self-declared “true” (as in ‘genuine’) coming-of-age story, in that it looks at the moment when we realize that we will cease to be someone’s child. Between Berina, who is 21, and her dying mother Jasna, a new, powerful hatred is born. Berina is a painter, and slowly the symbols go from her paintings into her life; people disappear, and only ghosts and signs of it and those that weren’t there remain.
Prediction: Bosnian director Faruk Lončarević (of the 2006, 65-minute feature Mum and Dad) started principal photography on this second feature last November, which is about as late as a film can begin shooting if it is to be considered a Cannes possibility. Selected way back in the 2009 CineMart crop at Rotterdam, this is a project that percolated for quite a while before cameras started rolling,...
- 4/2/2013
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
Chicago – Five years after revitalizing the Romanian film industry with his 2007 Palme d’Or winner, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” filmmaker Cristian Mungiu returned to the Cannes Film Festival with his eagerly awaited follow-up, “Beyond the Hills.” Mungiu won the screenplay prize while his leading ladies, newcomers Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur, each received acting accolades.
Art house audiences in Chicago will have the chance to catch Mungiu’s chilling drama when it opens Friday at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. The fact-based tale centers on two old friends, Voichita (Stratan) and Alina (Flutur), who reconnect at an isolated monastery that appears to have been frozen in time. Though Alina expects her friend (and former lover) to leave with her, Voichita opts for a life of devout worship with the nuns rather than embrace mortal pleasures. Alina’s enraged acts of rebellion are interpreted by Voichita’s fellow nuns as demonic possession,...
Art house audiences in Chicago will have the chance to catch Mungiu’s chilling drama when it opens Friday at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. The fact-based tale centers on two old friends, Voichita (Stratan) and Alina (Flutur), who reconnect at an isolated monastery that appears to have been frozen in time. Though Alina expects her friend (and former lover) to leave with her, Voichita opts for a life of devout worship with the nuns rather than embrace mortal pleasures. Alina’s enraged acts of rebellion are interpreted by Voichita’s fellow nuns as demonic possession,...
- 3/12/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
A subset of Romanian cinema remains deeply informed by Nicolae Ceaușescu's tenure as General Secretary of the nation's Communist Party, a 24-year reign that ended with his execution in 1989. The title of Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest refers to the exact moment at which the dictator attempted to flee the eponymous city, Radu Gabrea’s docudrama Three Days Till Christmas reenacts his last days alive, and Cătălin Mitulescu's The Way I Spent the End of the World tells of two siblings whose respective plans involve escaping the country and assassinating Ceaușescu. The most explicit example is Andrei Ujica's The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu, a three-hour-long documentary composed entirely of archival footage that gives as clear a sense of the authoritarian ruler's public persona (and, given the many mass demonstrations he's shown attending, how the populace was meant to act in his presence) as any layman such as...
- 3/9/2013
- by Michael Nordine
- MUBI
Alina (Cristina Flutur) returns to the impoverished Romanian community of her childhood in the hope of reuniting with Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) and returning with her to Germany and a new life. Upon arrival though, Alina discovers that Voichita has set up a new life for herself in a remote monastery and replaced her love with that of God. Undeterred, yet at the risk of her own mental wellbeing, Alina desperately tries to undermine the monasteries priest (Valeriu Andriuta) and reclaim Voichita’s devotion.
In Beyond the Hills, Romanian-born writer-director Cristian Mungiu’s follow-up to the award-winning and acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the complicated bond between two women is once again put under the spotlight. Alina and Voichita, once unified, have been separated for several years, each influenced by life in different ways. Alina has become strained under the pressure of her desired independence, while Voichita has found acceptance – and...
In Beyond the Hills, Romanian-born writer-director Cristian Mungiu’s follow-up to the award-winning and acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the complicated bond between two women is once again put under the spotlight. Alina and Voichita, once unified, have been separated for several years, each influenced by life in different ways. Alina has become strained under the pressure of her desired independence, while Voichita has found acceptance – and...
- 10/15/2012
- by Jamie Neish
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Cristian Mungiu’s (4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days) sombre, unsettling film about the polarisation of religion and the individual is another challenging effort from the director, one which, despite an over-long 150-minute run-time, is well worth the trip for the patient viewer.
Best friends Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) and Alina (Cristina Flutur) have long since diverged on their life paths, but meet up under emotional circumstances when Alina comes to visit Voichita, who is now a nun at a secluded monastery. Emotionally cold and situated in a desolate expanse without even modern necessities like electricity, it is clear early on that Voichita is not who Alina expected to meet, and we quickly begin to fear that she has been brainwashed by “Papa” (Valeriu Andriuta), the authoritarian leader of the church. The very fact that her accommodation in the monastery is frequently referred to as a “cell” only helps generate an atmosphere of incarceration,...
Cristian Mungiu’s (4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days) sombre, unsettling film about the polarisation of religion and the individual is another challenging effort from the director, one which, despite an over-long 150-minute run-time, is well worth the trip for the patient viewer.
Best friends Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) and Alina (Cristina Flutur) have long since diverged on their life paths, but meet up under emotional circumstances when Alina comes to visit Voichita, who is now a nun at a secluded monastery. Emotionally cold and situated in a desolate expanse without even modern necessities like electricity, it is clear early on that Voichita is not who Alina expected to meet, and we quickly begin to fear that she has been brainwashed by “Papa” (Valeriu Andriuta), the authoritarian leader of the church. The very fact that her accommodation in the monastery is frequently referred to as a “cell” only helps generate an atmosphere of incarceration,...
- 10/13/2012
- by Shaun Munro
- Obsessed with Film
Chicago – The 48th Annual Chicago International Film Festival boasts one of the starriest opening nights in its history, with Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin and Jon Bon Jovi all scheduled to walk the red carpet for the October 11th world premiere of Fisher Stevens’ crime comedy, “Stand Up Guys.” Yet that is far from the only picture worthy of attention at the year’s festival. Here are the highlights of the opening weekend covering October 11th to October 14th, 2012 (stay tuned on the 15th and 18th for more highlights).
Throughout the festival, Hollywood Chicago will be showcasing various films that deserve to not be overlooked. The opening act of this year’s Ciff includes a mind-bending fantasy that caused a sensation at Cannes and a riveting Wisconsin-set documentary that offers an unforgettable microcosm of the financial crisis. Also screening are the latest buzzed-about titles from directors including Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months,...
Throughout the festival, Hollywood Chicago will be showcasing various films that deserve to not be overlooked. The opening act of this year’s Ciff includes a mind-bending fantasy that caused a sensation at Cannes and a riveting Wisconsin-set documentary that offers an unforgettable microcosm of the financial crisis. Also screening are the latest buzzed-about titles from directors including Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months,...
- 10/11/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Beyond the Hills (Dupa dealuri)
Directed by Cristian Mungiu
Written by Cristian Mungiu (inspired by the non-fiction novels of Tatiana Niculescu Bran)
2012, Romania
At 150 minutes, Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills is not a second overlong. Extended as its takes may be and as patiently as the narrative progresses to its drained conclusion, there is a heaving sense of urgency to this story of a young woman who was failed by pretty much everyone – including herself – and died because of it. It is a true story in fact, fashioned by Mungiu, with the assistance of Niculescu Bran whose non-fiction novels he drew much inspiration from, into a fine screenplay that contains more religious and anti-religious rhetoric than a movie that ultimately feels this morally cagey has any right to. This might partly be due to the way the director shoots his actors and the way the actors speak his lines,...
Directed by Cristian Mungiu
Written by Cristian Mungiu (inspired by the non-fiction novels of Tatiana Niculescu Bran)
2012, Romania
At 150 minutes, Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills is not a second overlong. Extended as its takes may be and as patiently as the narrative progresses to its drained conclusion, there is a heaving sense of urgency to this story of a young woman who was failed by pretty much everyone – including herself – and died because of it. It is a true story in fact, fashioned by Mungiu, with the assistance of Niculescu Bran whose non-fiction novels he drew much inspiration from, into a fine screenplay that contains more religious and anti-religious rhetoric than a movie that ultimately feels this morally cagey has any right to. This might partly be due to the way the director shoots his actors and the way the actors speak his lines,...
- 8/13/2012
- by Tope
- SoundOnSight
DVD Release Date: March 13, 2012
Price: DVD $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Viktor Nemets (r.) tries to get a grip in My Joy.
The drama My Joy is the first fiction film directed by acclaimed Russian documentary filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa.
A parable of post-Communist Russia, the 2010 movie weaves the tale of a truck driver Georgy (Viktor Nemets) who sets out on a provincial Russian highway for a routine delivery, but finds his journey spiraling out of control following a series of chance encounters. A roadside police check, a talkative war veteran, and a too-young prostitute lead him to a village from which there appears to be no way out – where the locals struggle to survive a tough, elemental world, and the past holds a vise-like grip over their everyday lives. Caught in this dead end, Georgy soon approaches a fate that is as strange as it is unexpected.
Based on true stories the...
Price: DVD $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Viktor Nemets (r.) tries to get a grip in My Joy.
The drama My Joy is the first fiction film directed by acclaimed Russian documentary filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa.
A parable of post-Communist Russia, the 2010 movie weaves the tale of a truck driver Georgy (Viktor Nemets) who sets out on a provincial Russian highway for a routine delivery, but finds his journey spiraling out of control following a series of chance encounters. A roadside police check, a talkative war veteran, and a too-young prostitute lead him to a village from which there appears to be no way out – where the locals struggle to survive a tough, elemental world, and the past holds a vise-like grip over their everyday lives. Caught in this dead end, Georgy soon approaches a fate that is as strange as it is unexpected.
Based on true stories the...
- 3/5/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
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