Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: A screening of Abel Gance's Napoléon at the Paramount Theatre Oakland in 2012. (Photo by San Francisco Silent Film Festival.)In partnership with the Cinémathèque Française and the French National Film Board, Netflix will be financing a new restoration of Abel Gance's 1927 silent epic Napoléon ahead of the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's death this summer. The film has been restored many times before, but this restoration aims to bring to life Gance's 7-hour "Apollo cut," named after the Apollo Theatre where the film screened in 1927. Beanpole filmmaker Kantemir Balagov has found his next project: An HBO series adaptation of the hit zombie video game series, The Last of Us. Bong Joon-ho will head the main jury of this year's Venice Film Festival, marking the first time a South Korean director has been picked...
- 1/20/2021
- MUBI
2020 was not so much a year that changed cinema, but the way we experience it––at least in the United States. The countries that contained Covid have largely reopened to box office success. The proof is in the numbers as the global box office champion of the year was the Chinese war epic The Eight Hundred, not a film from a major US-based studio. Instead, high-profile event films like a new Pixar animation or a major superhero movie became “must-stream TV,” leaving theatrical exhibitors largely high and dry. For cinephiles, most of us enjoyed Steve McQueen’s masterful Small Axe anthology at home on Amazon Prime or the BBC, further blurring the line between prestige television and prestige cinema.
2021 will continue to be a year of experimentation until the theatrical business finds its footing again. While the latter half of the year may include delayed blockbusters, one has to fear...
2021 will continue to be a year of experimentation until the theatrical business finds its footing again. While the latter half of the year may include delayed blockbusters, one has to fear...
- 1/7/2021
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Alex Wheatle (Steve McQueen)
Alex Wheatle, the fourth entry in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, offers a modest take on the process of unlearning cultural attitudes and biases through the eyes of a naïve teenager. In 1980, Alex Wheatle moves to a social services hostel in Brixton after spending his childhood in a group home, where he was subject to constant abuse from his white peers and caretaker. In Brixton, however, Wheatle finds himself immersed in the Black British community, from which he was displaced growing up in all-white Surrey, where he slowly but surely assimilates the patois, fashion, and most importantly, music of his culture. He quickly witnesses...
Alex Wheatle (Steve McQueen)
Alex Wheatle, the fourth entry in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, offers a modest take on the process of unlearning cultural attitudes and biases through the eyes of a naïve teenager. In 1980, Alex Wheatle moves to a social services hostel in Brixton after spending his childhood in a group home, where he was subject to constant abuse from his white peers and caretaker. In Brixton, however, Wheatle finds himself immersed in the Black British community, from which he was displaced growing up in all-white Surrey, where he slowly but surely assimilates the patois, fashion, and most importantly, music of his culture. He quickly witnesses...
- 12/11/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
To The Ends Of The Earth (Tabi no Owari Sekai no Hajimari) Tokyo Theatres Co./ Loaded Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Cast: Atsuko Maeda, Tokio Emoto, Ryô Kase, Adiz Rajabov, Shôta Sometani Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 11/18/20 Opens: December 11, […]
The post To The Ends of the Earth Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post To The Ends of the Earth Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 12/6/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s big-screen adaptation of Rokuro Inui’s novel A Perfect Day for Plesiosaur marks the director’s slow transition from horrors like “Cure” and “Retribution” to more recent dramas including 2017’s “Before We Vanish” and “To the Ends of the Earth.” In this genre mashup of thriller, science fiction, drama, romance, and monster movie, Kurosawa creates an experience which is bound to be bizarre and disorienting, even for viewers who are accustomed to his surreal style.
The story revolves around Koichi Fujita, a neurologist with access to new and innovative technology, trying to access the depths of his comatose lover’s mind. Atsumi Kazu is a manga artist who had attempted to kill herself the year before, after a negative experience with writer’s block, and has been unconscious ever since. Alongside his assistants Aihara and Yonemura, Koichi spends hour-long sessions in the mind of Atsumi through a...
The story revolves around Koichi Fujita, a neurologist with access to new and innovative technology, trying to access the depths of his comatose lover’s mind. Atsumi Kazu is a manga artist who had attempted to kill herself the year before, after a negative experience with writer’s block, and has been unconscious ever since. Alongside his assistants Aihara and Yonemura, Koichi spends hour-long sessions in the mind of Atsumi through a...
- 12/1/2020
- by Spencer Nafekh-Blanchette
- AsianMoviePulse
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a unique case of a filmmaker, even for an industry as diverse as the Japanese one, and not just for his additional roles as a film critic and a professor at Tokyo University of Arts. Starting with Pink Film and low-budget V-cinema, he went on to be nominated for an Oshima Prize at Pia Film Festival, worked with Shinji Somai, and won a scholarship to the Sundance Institute by submitting his original screen play for “Charisma”. This particular achievement allowed him to study in the US despite already being a director for almost ten years, which led him to his first major international success, with “Cure”. The film kickstarted a path that led him to the top of J-horror, with his movies, though, implementing a unique approach, that of the “slow-terror”. Some years later, he re-invented himself as he started to deal with family dramas with particular success,...
- 11/19/2020
- by AMP Group
- AsianMoviePulse
Feeling lost, despite seemingly having success, is something that many people will deal with over the course of their lives. And that’s something that is explored in-depth in the beautiful new drama, “To the Ends of the Earth,” by filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Read More: ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Travelogue Is A Delightful Crowd-Pleaser [Fnc Review]
As seen in the trailer for “To the Ends of the Earth,” the film tells the story of Yoko, a host of a travel show in Japan that finds herself in Uzbekistan on assignment.
Continue reading ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’ Trailer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Festival Standout Arrives In December at The Playlist.
Read More: ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Travelogue Is A Delightful Crowd-Pleaser [Fnc Review]
As seen in the trailer for “To the Ends of the Earth,” the film tells the story of Yoko, a host of a travel show in Japan that finds herself in Uzbekistan on assignment.
Continue reading ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’ Trailer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Festival Standout Arrives In December at The Playlist.
- 11/18/2020
- by Charles Barfield
- The Playlist
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe 49th annual New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) has been rescheduled from March to December 9-20, with films slated to premiere in the Film at Lincoln Center Virtual Cinema. The line-up includes Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s The Cloud in Her Room, Maya Da-Rin's The Fever, and Alexander Nanau’s Collective. Lynne Ramsay, who last directed You Were Never Really Here, will be adapting Steven King's psychological horror novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, about a young girl who becomes lost in the woods. Recommended VIEWINGAbel Ferrara's new documentary, Sportin' Life, which premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival in August, has gone an unusual premiere route, streaming first through Indiewire (currently unavailable), and now at The Film Stage. Shot by Sean Price Willaims, the documentary follows Ferrara as he...
- 11/18/2020
- MUBI
"It was like a dream." KimStim Films has released an official trailer for the US release of the Japanese indie film To the Ends of the Earth, one of the latest works by prolific Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This premiered at the fall festivals last year including Locarno, TIFF, and New York, and is opening in select theaters (starting at the Metrograph) this December. A Japanese woman finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety TV show. It's described as "a brilliant mix of black comedy, travelogue, drama, and adventure-imbued showbiz satire, To the Ends of the Earth—commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan—chronicles the journey of a young woman from displacement to self-discovery." Starring Atsuko Maeda as Yoko, Shôta Sometani, Tokio Emoto, Adiz Rajabov,...
- 11/16/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
One of last year’s best films would, by extension, prove a clear highlight of 2020 even if a normal theatrical climate persisted. Sneaking in just under the wire, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth will be released by Kimstim on December 11 via Metrograph, and they’ve debuted a U.S. trailer on Indiewire. that does well to capture the movie’s panoply of tones: disquieting without proving grim, the elemental and magnificent bound together.
We gave the film nice marks at its Locarno premiere, while managing editor Nick Newman named it his second-favorite feature of 2019, saying “Most filmmakers, even great ones, would use their displacement to gawk and play easy notes about fish-out-of-water life; Kiyoshi Kurosawa instead created a paean to the perpetually lost–rarely has anything in any medium so succinctly captured the constant unease and occasional terror of international travel.”
Find the trailer and poster...
We gave the film nice marks at its Locarno premiere, while managing editor Nick Newman named it his second-favorite feature of 2019, saying “Most filmmakers, even great ones, would use their displacement to gawk and play easy notes about fish-out-of-water life; Kiyoshi Kurosawa instead created a paean to the perpetually lost–rarely has anything in any medium so succinctly captured the constant unease and occasional terror of international travel.”
Find the trailer and poster...
- 11/16/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
“To the Ends of the Earth” was jointly commissioned by Japan and Uzbekistan to commemorate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, as well as the 70th anniversary of the Navoi Theater in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was constructed by Japanese prisoners of war after World War II. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose filmography boasts of various genres but is probably most well-known for his earlier J-horror films like “Cure” and “Pulse”, was hired to write and direct the film.
“To the Ends of the Earth” screened at San Diego Asian Film Festival
Yoko is in Uzbekistan as a reporter to shoot a travel documentary about the country for a variety show, but it’s not going as smoothly as her team or she expects. A rare, almost mythical fish apparently native to a lake there which they want to catch and film won’t bite, the rice in...
“To the Ends of the Earth” screened at San Diego Asian Film Festival
Yoko is in Uzbekistan as a reporter to shoot a travel documentary about the country for a variety show, but it’s not going as smoothly as her team or she expects. A rare, almost mythical fish apparently native to a lake there which they want to catch and film won’t bite, the rice in...
- 11/20/2019
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
The youth-focused festival has recruited 400 young jurors from 41 countries.
Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s It Must Be Heaven opens an expanded seventh edition of Doha Film Institute (Dfi)’s youth-focused Ajyal Film Festival, which runs November 18-23.
For the first time, the event will also unfold in the new commercial venues of the Novo Cinemas on the Pearl island district and Vox Cinemas in the Doha Festival City Hall mall as well as its traditional home of the Katara cultural quarter.
“We’re excited to be holding screenings in multiple locations outside our traditional base of Katara,” festival chief and...
Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s It Must Be Heaven opens an expanded seventh edition of Doha Film Institute (Dfi)’s youth-focused Ajyal Film Festival, which runs November 18-23.
For the first time, the event will also unfold in the new commercial venues of the Novo Cinemas on the Pearl island district and Vox Cinemas in the Doha Festival City Hall mall as well as its traditional home of the Katara cultural quarter.
“We’re excited to be holding screenings in multiple locations outside our traditional base of Katara,” festival chief and...
- 11/18/2019
- by 1100380¦Melanie Goodfellow¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
“The Haunting of Hill House” meets “Homecoming” — that could be Apple’s pitch to awards voters for “Servant,” its new half-hour drama premiering November 28. With the narrative transpiring entirely inside (and occasionally on the block just outside) a Philadelphia townhouse, “Servant” compensates for set pieces with atmospheric directing led by M. Night Shyamalan, complete with the long takes that were critically acclaimed hallmarks of the other aforementioned streaming series. Although there are flourishes of horror, like in the title sequence reminiscent of “The Haunting of Hill House,” this is a psychological thriller that builds tension with incomplete memories and unconventional framing in the vein of “Homecoming.”
Still on hiatus, fellow half-hour “Homecoming” leaves nomination slots open at the Golden Globe Awards this year for Best Drama Series, Actress and Actor that could be filled by “Servant.” The “Homecoming” nomination recognized past favorite Sam Esmail, who had won the same prize for creating “Mr. Robot.
Still on hiatus, fellow half-hour “Homecoming” leaves nomination slots open at the Golden Globe Awards this year for Best Drama Series, Actress and Actor that could be filled by “Servant.” The “Homecoming” nomination recognized past favorite Sam Esmail, who had won the same prize for creating “Mr. Robot.
- 11/16/2019
- by Riley Chow
- Gold Derby
The Japanese filmmaker started shooting in Japan in October.
Japan’s Nikkatsu has picked up international rights to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s next project, an ambitious as-yet-untitled war drama that he will shoot with 8K Super Hi-Vision.
Kurosawa has co-scripted the film with Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose Asako I & II played in Cannes Competition in 2018, and Tadashi Nohara, co-writer of Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour. Yu Aoi (Birds Without Names) will head the cast.
Set in Kobe, Japan in 1940, the film follows a merchant who witnesses a conspiracy whilst travelling and decides to take action to reveal it to the world. His wife...
Japan’s Nikkatsu has picked up international rights to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s next project, an ambitious as-yet-untitled war drama that he will shoot with 8K Super Hi-Vision.
Kurosawa has co-scripted the film with Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose Asako I & II played in Cannes Competition in 2018, and Tadashi Nohara, co-writer of Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour. Yu Aoi (Birds Without Names) will head the cast.
Set in Kobe, Japan in 1940, the film follows a merchant who witnesses a conspiracy whilst travelling and decides to take action to reveal it to the world. His wife...
- 11/7/2019
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
‘To The Ends Of The Earth’: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Travelogue Is A Delightful Crowd-Pleaser [Fnc Review]
Like the displaced protagonists they often depict, a change of scenery can shake a filmmaker out of his or her creative doldrums. “To the Ends of the Earth” takes Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa—best known for his essential entries in the J-horror canon—to Uzbekistan, of all places. The resulting feature is a tonal shape-shifter, in turn, a road movie, a meditative drama, a thriller, and even a convincing fish-out-of-water comedy.
Continue reading ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Travelogue Is A Delightful Crowd-Pleaser [Fnc Review] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘To The Ends Of The Earth’: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Travelogue Is A Delightful Crowd-Pleaser [Fnc Review] at The Playlist.
- 10/26/2019
- by Bradley Warren
- The Playlist
Exclusive: BBC Studios drama supremo Hilary Salmon, who has overseen series including Luther and Richard Gere’s MotherFatherSon, is leaving the production arm of the British public broadcaster.
Deadline understands that Salmon, who has been with the BBC for over twenty years, is setting up a drama production company with her former BBC Studios colleagues Nick Betts and Radford Neville
Salmon, Betts, who was previously Director of Scripted at BBC Studios, having joined the BBC in 2007 from NBC Universal, and Neville, who joined the BBC in 2017 from The Crown producer Left Bank, have established The Lighthouse. It is understood that the trio, who are equal partners in the independent venture, will produce scripted series for UK and international broadcasters and streaming platforms. Salmon and Neville will leave BBC Studios at the end of the year.
Salmon, who most recently was boss of BBC Studios’ London drama division,...
Deadline understands that Salmon, who has been with the BBC for over twenty years, is setting up a drama production company with her former BBC Studios colleagues Nick Betts and Radford Neville
Salmon, Betts, who was previously Director of Scripted at BBC Studios, having joined the BBC in 2007 from NBC Universal, and Neville, who joined the BBC in 2017 from The Crown producer Left Bank, have established The Lighthouse. It is understood that the trio, who are equal partners in the independent venture, will produce scripted series for UK and international broadcasters and streaming platforms. Salmon and Neville will leave BBC Studios at the end of the year.
Salmon, who most recently was boss of BBC Studios’ London drama division,...
- 10/21/2019
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
‘The Takatsu River’ stars Masahiro Koumoto and ‘Meeting Myself’ stars Takahiro and Keiko Matsuzaka
Japan’s Free Stone Productions has picked up international rights to two dramas directed by Yoshinari Nishikori: The Takatsu River and Meeting Myself.
Starring Masahiro Koumoto and Naho Toda, The Takatsu River is set in a town that is struggling with population decline and the loss of its traditional arts, as young people move away to the big cities. Japanese release is scheduled for the first quarter of 2020.
Meeting Myself is the story of a fisherman suffering from amnesia following an accident, whose mother sees an...
Japan’s Free Stone Productions has picked up international rights to two dramas directed by Yoshinari Nishikori: The Takatsu River and Meeting Myself.
Starring Masahiro Koumoto and Naho Toda, The Takatsu River is set in a town that is struggling with population decline and the loss of its traditional arts, as young people move away to the big cities. Japanese release is scheduled for the first quarter of 2020.
Meeting Myself is the story of a fisherman suffering from amnesia following an accident, whose mother sees an...
- 10/6/2019
- by 89¦Liz Shackleton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
The minimum budget for a project to qualify is $100,000
Uzbekistan is launching a 20% rebate on total expenditures for foreign productions that shoot in the Central Asian country from January 1, 2020.
Mukhlisa Azizova, chairman of the Uzbekistan National Film Commission, says the rebate is being introduced to help develop the country’s tourism sector. The minimum-budget for a project to qualify will be $100,000, but there will be no cap. “The maximum is unlimited,” said Azizova.
Uzbekistan National Film Commission is also launching a grant system that could cover production costs up to $300,000 for eligible audiovisual projects. To qualify, a producer will need...
Uzbekistan is launching a 20% rebate on total expenditures for foreign productions that shoot in the Central Asian country from January 1, 2020.
Mukhlisa Azizova, chairman of the Uzbekistan National Film Commission, says the rebate is being introduced to help develop the country’s tourism sector. The minimum-budget for a project to qualify will be $100,000, but there will be no cap. “The maximum is unlimited,” said Azizova.
Uzbekistan National Film Commission is also launching a grant system that could cover production costs up to $300,000 for eligible audiovisual projects. To qualify, a producer will need...
- 10/6/2019
- by 134¦Jean Noh¦516¦
- ScreenDaily
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth is a masterful film—all the more so for being masterful in the most unassuming of ways. The film originated as a commission to commemorate diplomatic relations between Japan and Uzbekistan, and to that end, it incorporates a number of the landlocked nation's various tourist landmarks—the Navoi Theater, the Chorsu Bazaar, and Lake Aydar. And yet, watching this thrillingly protean film, one would be hard-pressed to dismiss this as a mere gun-for-hire effort. It is modest, to be sure—and perhaps destined to be received as a doggedly minor work. But in that sense, the film is also an auteurist work par excellence, one that demonstrates—perhaps more so than any of Kurosawa’s work this decade—the director’s casual control of disparate genres, tones, and moods.No mere fish-out-of-water travelogue, To the Ends of the Earth is a...
- 9/27/2019
- MUBI
Competition to screen 14 titles including the world premieres of Japanese films Tezuka’s Barbara and A Beloved Wife.
Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced the full line-up for its 32nd edition, including the 14 titles selected for its International Competition.
In addition to previously announced Japanese titles Tezuka’s Barbara from Macoto Tezka and Shin Adachi’s A Beloved Wife, the competition will screen five other world premieres including Chinese director Wang Rui’s Chaogtu With Sarula, Food For A Funeral from Turkey’s Reis Celik and Uncle from Danish director Frelle Petersen.
Asia premieres in this section include Jayro...
Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced the full line-up for its 32nd edition, including the 14 titles selected for its International Competition.
In addition to previously announced Japanese titles Tezuka’s Barbara from Macoto Tezka and Shin Adachi’s A Beloved Wife, the competition will screen five other world premieres including Chinese director Wang Rui’s Chaogtu With Sarula, Food For A Funeral from Turkey’s Reis Celik and Uncle from Danish director Frelle Petersen.
Asia premieres in this section include Jayro...
- 9/26/2019
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
Top Picksdaniel KASMAN1. 2008 (Blake Williams)2. State Funeral (Sergei Loznitsa)3. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)4. Seven Years in May (Affonso Uchôa)5. Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie)6. Crazy World (Nabwana I.G.G.)7. Austrian Pavilion (Philipp Fleischmann)8. Transcript (Erica Sheu)9. Collective (Alexander Nanau)10. Book of Hours (Annie MacDonell)Fernando F. CROCE1. The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)2. The Cordillera of Dreams (Patricio Guzmán)3. Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie)4. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles)5. The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)6. First Love (Takashi Miike)7. Anne at 13,000 ft (Kazik Radwanksi)8. The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão (Karim Aïnouz)9. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)10. It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)Kelley DONG1. To the Ends of the Earth (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)2. Jordan River Anderson, the Messenger (Alanis Obomsawin)3. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn)4. Liberté (Albert Serra)5. How to Build a Girl (Coky Gieroyc), Saint Maud (Rose Glass)Correspondences#1 Daniel Kasman...
- 9/18/2019
- MUBI
The Notebook is covering Tiff with an on-going correspondence between critics Fernando F. Croce Kelley Dong, and editor Daniel Kasman.Saint MaudDear Danny and Fern, The festival has come to an end and exhaustion has caught up to me. The end of press screenings and industry gatherings signals the start of sleep and, whenever awake, reading Jack London’s Martin Eden. Having seen so many films in a short timespan means that while I can enjoy a much-needed physical break, my mind is still racing with ideas on the verge of being unearthed. I benefit much from sorting through these and thinking with you, and as always, consider myself very lucky. You each mention being jolted and throttled, good news amid an assortment of lulls. I'd been searching for such ferocity all throughout the festival until finally I encountered Rose Glass’s Saint Maud, which left me so petrified and...
- 9/16/2019
- MUBI
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