Noticias

Irish Film & TV Academy Names Rising Star Nominees

The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) and Screen Ireland (Fís Éireann) have unveiled the four Rising Star nominees ahead of the IFTA Awards Ceremony on February 14 in Dublin. They are Say Nothing and Masters of the Air actor Anthony Boyle, writer/director Aislinn Clarke, Clinton Liberty and Alisha Weir. “These four Healy talented Rising Stars represent the new wave of Irish professionals who are leading our homegrown industry on the world stage,” said Áine Moriarty, CEO of IFTA. Previous winners include Saoirse Ronan, Michael Fassbender, Nicola Coughlan, Domhnall Gleeson and Jamie Dornan. The Awards will take place at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre, with more details of the event set to follow. Screen Ireland Coimisiún na Meán.

‘Night Agent’s Kylo Freeman Signs With Ignite Elite Artists

Exclusive: Night Agent,...

Christian Petzold’s new drama Miroirs No. 3 has struck a North American distribution deal with Metrograph Pictures just ahead of its production start in Germany.

Marking the fourth feature collaboration for the renowned German filmmaker and actress Paula Beer, the film will be released next year. The Match Factory negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers and is handling worldwide sales.

Miroirs No. 3 centers on the aspiring pianist, Laura (Beer), whose life is upended when she is in a car crash with her boyfriend who is killed. Laura subsequently wanders into the house and life of a family of strangers, who offer to take care of her, but their motivations turn out to not be as simple as they first appear.

Also starring Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt and Enno Trebs, the film is produced by Schramm Film Koerner Weber Kaiser, in co-production with Zdf and Arte. Its financiers included Filmförderungsanstalt,...

German actress Nina Hoss (Phoenix, Tár, Barbara) has signed on to star in The Other Side, an upcoming adventure thriller from German director Mariko Minoguchi.

Hoss will play Hanna, a doctor who, during the midst of an epidemic, goes into self-isolation in the mountain wilderness to protect herself and others.

Best known for her many collaborations with German director Christian Petzold —including 2007’s Yella, 2012’s Barbara and 2014’s Phoenix — Hoss played Cate Blanchett’s wife in Todd Field’s Oscar-nominated Tár (2022) and had a recurring role as Astrid in seasons 5 and 6 of Showtime’s Emmy-winning series Homeland and in Amazon’s action series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. More recently, Hoss co-starred in Claire Burger’s coming-of-age romantic drama Langue Étrangère, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last month, and in Radu Jude’s freewheeling feminist satire Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, which...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for German director Christian Petzold’s new film Afire, following its award-winning world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

The work was feted with Berlin’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize on Sunday evening (Feb 25) by an international jury led by Kristen Stewart.

The comedy-drama revolves around four very different young people who are thrown together unexpectedly in a remote holiday home by the Baltic Sea.

In the rainless, heat of the summer, sparks begin to fly among the group as the parched forests surrounding the house also start to ignite.

News of the acquisition comes hot on the heels of the announcement by Sideshow and Janus Films on Tuesday that they had taken North American rights for the Mexican competition title Tótem.

The New York-based distribution partners said of Afire: “Christian Petzold has consistently been one of the most thrilling and surprising filmmakers.

Mubi has unveiled their lineup for next month, featuring the exclusive streaming premiere of Frederick Wiseman’s masterful documentary City Hall, the late Monte Hellman’s final film Road to Nowhere, a trio of works by Stephen Cone, two films by Alain Resnais, the multi-month series Sex, Truth, and Videotape: French Feminist Activism, and Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant.

As a special addition in addition to the regular programming listed below, the new restoration of Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris will be available as a free presentation celebrating Juneteenth, from June 18-19. Timed with the release of his latest gem Undine, a Christian Petzold retrospective continues with his earlier, essential films Yella, Barbara, Ostwärts, and The Warm Money.

Check out the lineup below, with links to reviews where available, and get 30 days of Mubi for free here. One can also check back for our new streaming picks every Friday here.

As Academy voters plow through some 90 submissions for Best International Feature, there’s a little-seen entry that’s a must-see: “My Little Sister,” starring award-winning German actress Nina Hoss in an incendiary performance as a woman fighting for her brother’s life.

The film’s low profile was all but inevitable: It debuted at the 2020 Berlinale, the film festival that got in just under the wire before Covid created a global lockdown. “It was a beautiful opening night,” said Hoss. “I didn’t know what would happen to the film. We waited. We brought it out [in October] in Berlin under hygienic regulations. We had a little cinema tour through places in Germany. Then we had lockdown again.” Watching “My Little Sister” during its brief theatrical run, Hoss said she was struck by how many scenes featured hospitals and face masks.

Written and directed by documentary filmmakers Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond,...

As Academy voters plow through some 90 submissions for Best International Feature, there’s a little-seen entry that’s a must-see: “My Little Sister,” starring award-winning German actress Nina Hoss in an incendiary performance as a woman fighting for her brother’s life.

The film’s low profile was all but inevitable: It debuted at the 2020 Berlinale, the film festival that got in just under the wire before Covid created a global lockdown. “It was a beautiful opening night,” said Hoss. “I didn’t know what would happen to the film. We waited. We brought it out [in October] in Berlin under hygienic regulations. We had a little cinema tour through places in Germany. Then we had lockdown again.” Watching “My Little Sister” during its brief theatrical run, Hoss said she was struck by how many scenes featured hospitals and face masks.

Written and directed by documentary filmmakers Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond,...

Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger, two of Germany’s preeminent acting talents, play twins coming to terms with a diagnosis of terminal illness in My Little Sister, the second narrative film by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond. It’s a film that carries emotional power more in its moments of natural reflexiveness than the weepie genre’s more conventional emotional beats, anchored by two focused lead performances that thankfully don’t succumb to melodrama.

Hoss plays Lisa, a Berlin playwright who’s given up the stage and settled into family life in Switzerland. But her heart remains in the German capital, where her brother Sven (Eidinger) is still a leading figure in the city’s theater scene. Eidinger is basically playing an extension of himself here, as a leading player on the German stage himself, star performer of an adaptation of Hamlet at Berlin’s Schaubühne that’s been playing...

In Undine, the new film by Christian Petzold, a fable of love inspired by the aquatic nymph is unexpectedly layered with a detailed history of the urban development of modern Berlin. Or perhaps this history does make sense, since Berlin, like Washington, D.C., was built on a swamp, and what lies beneath each city always seems a latent, albeit usually metaphorical, threat. This strange mix of story and history should come as no surprise to fans of the director, who by now should be used to his frequently subtle layering of unresolved German political tensions into his sleek, cerebral revisions of genre storytelling. But in Undine this is not layered, it is literally said: the titular character is a historian and public guide for the city’s history, and we hear several abbreviated bursts of exposition combined with caressing camera movements across scale models of the city showing pre- and post-reunification edifices,...

Christian Petzold: The State We Are In is showing at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center from November 30 – December 13, 2018.JerichowIt begins with a train. Sometimes it’s a bus. A few films center their action in a car. This is not to say we will watch a road trip or the story of a journey. The newest film opens with a train escape, but revolves around booking passage on an international ship. Characters pass through space to evade, to rejoin and to hide. Movement through landscape is essential, but rarely do characters succeed in reaching anywhere new. Frames are precise; form is economical. The value of money and labor, often dehumanizing, are vital to acquire. Lead characters, often women, are oddly both familiar and alien. They live among us, yet seem unreachable and unreadable. His films are both self-reflexive and of the world; they indicate a particularly German trauma and crisis.

Transit star Franz Rogowski on Christian Petzold: "Christian has a deep connection with ghosts. And ghosts keep coming back in his work over the past 20 years." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center Christian Petzold retrospective The State We Are In includes films with actors Nina Hoss, Benno Fürmann and Ronald Zehrfeld, shot by Petzold's longtime cinematographer Hans Fromm.

Franz Rogowski as Georg in Transit: "Yeah, he's stuck. I mean, bureaucratic hell got him."

Harun Farocki's The Interview, along with Nothing Ventured and Petzold's latest, Transit, starring Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer with Barbara Auer, Lilien Batman, Alex Brendemühl, Godehard Giese, Maryam Zaree, and Matthias Brandt (Main Slate selection of the 56th New York Film Festival), will also screen in the programme.

Transit positions Anna Seghers's novel (originally published in 1944) about a young, nameless man who escaped a concentration camp and travels through France in 1942 in the hopes to.

Music Box Films has acquired U.S. rights to Christian Petzold’s “Transit,” which world-premiered in competition at Berlin and is set to play at the Toronto and New York film festivals.

“Transit,” which stars Franz Rogowski (“In the Aisles”) and Paula Beer (“Frantz”), was adapted from Anna Seghers’ World War II novel of the same name. An examination of modern France, it takes place in Marseilles just after the German invasion and follows Georg, a German refugee who takes on the identity of a recently deceased author, Weidel. Variety called it a film of “piercing emotional acuity.”

A well-established German filmmaker, Petzold also directed “Barbara,” which won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear in 2012; “Phoenix,” which won the Fipresci Prize at San Sebastian; and “Yella.”

“We are great admirers of Christian’s films, and are thrilled to finally be working with him,” said Music Box Films President William Schopf, who...

The cinema of German auteur Christian Petzold is populated with ghosts, from his Ghosts trilogy that spans The State I Am In, Ghosts and Yella to his more recent historical films, like Barbara and Phoenix, where people are never what they seem and the past and present feel like they exist almost simultaneously because the issues that the characters in the past struggle with resonate so clearly in the world we live in today.

His latest film, Transit, takes this idea one step further, with Petzold taking the story of the eponymous Anna Seghers novel written and set in 1942 zone libre Marseille but telling it against ...

The cinema of German auteur Christian Petzold is populated with ghosts, from his Ghosts trilogy that spans The State I Am In, Ghosts and Yella to his more recent historical films, like Barbara and Phoenix, where people are never what they seem and the past and present feel like they exist almost simultaneously because the issues that the characters in the past struggle with resonate so clearly in the world we live in today.

His latest film, Transit, takes this idea one step further, with Petzold taking the story of the eponymous Anna Seghers novel written and set in 1942 zone libre Marseille but telling it against ...

Exclusive: German sales agent boards next project from the director of Phoenix [pictured].

The Match Factory has boarded international sales for Christian Petzold’s next feature Transit, a contemporary reworking of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about refugees attempting to flee through Marseille after the Nazi invasion of France in 1940.

Paula Beer, who won the best newcomer award at Venice last year for iFrancois Ozon’s Frantz, and Franz Rogowski (Tiger Girl) lead the cast on the film, which will begin a 40-day shoot in Marseilles from mid-May.

Transit will mark the 11th collaboration between Petzold and Berlin-based production company Schramm Film after such films as The State I Am In, Yella, Barbara and Phoenix. Schramm Film is in this year’s Competition with Thomas Arslan’s road movie Bright Lights, which is also handled by The Match Factory.

Transit has received €500,000 funding from the German-French Funding Committee and €350,000 from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

Marseille-based Neon is on board as co-producer and Piffl...

Transit

Director: Christian Petzold

Writers: Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki

From within the newer movement known as the Berlin School of filmmaking, German auteur Christian Petzold has managed to stake the greatest international acclaim thanks to recent titles such as Barbara (2012) and Phoenix (2014). Mostly working with co-collaborator Nina Hoss, Petzold tends to craft his films from already existing cinematic endeavors (Phoenix is a version of Return from the Ashes and 2007’s Yella retools Carnival of Souls). Petzold aims to return to the 1940s with Transit, an adaptation of Anna Segher’s 1942 novel Transit Visa which concerns a refugee trapped without papers in Marseilles.

Cast: Na

Production Co./Producers: Na

U.S. Distributor: Rights available. Tbd (domestic/international).

Release Date: During publicity for the Us release of Phoenix in 2015, Petzold professed his plans to shoot Transit sometime in 2016 (he also filmed a project called Circles for Bavarian television network Br). No news...

In Christian Petzold’s Phoenix, the tall, blonde German actress Nina Hoss plays Nelly Lenz, a Jewish nightclub singer who survives a concentration camp — despite being shot in the face by the Nazis and left for dead — and returns to a rubbled postwar Berlin in search of her non-Jewish husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). This is Hoss’s sixth film with Petzold (most recently, she was a battered wife in Yella and a persecuted East German doctor in Barbara), and it’s not the first time that she has played a traumatized ghost. The Holocaust has obliterated not only Nelly’s face but also her identity, her sense of self, her place in the world. Her friend Lene (Nina Kunzendorf) insists that it was Johnny who gave Nelly up to the Nazis to save his own life and that she should leave Germany for Haifa, where there’s an apartment waiting for her.

The German actress sang at Glastonbury and acted alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final film. It seems America may soon decide Hoss is boss…

Nina Hoss is at that juncture where years of acclaim could tip her over into outright fame. She is two months off 40 and can bank on the admiration of international arthouse audiences, who have seen her in a run of disquieting thrillers by Christian Petzold. These include Yella, for which she won the best actress prize at the Berlin film festival in 2007; Jerichow (2008), a German take on The Postman Always Rings Twice; and Barbara (2012), an enigmatic portrait of life under the Gdr. She also collaborated last year with Manic Street Preachers on the song “Europa Geht Durch Mich”, produced by her partner, Alex Silva. She even went on the road with the band, performing at Glastonbury. “I had my wellies,” she tells me.

She recently...

After a couple of years’ absence publicist/ producer, Richard Lormand is returning to Toronto with a satchel full of films. Check these out because when he chooses films, he chooses them well.

"Phoenix"

Christian Petzold

Disfigured Holocaust survivor Nina, now unrecognizable after facial reconstruction, returns to find out if her husband really loves her or actually betrayed her...

Starring "Barbara" leads Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld. Romance and reconstruction in post World War II Germany from the critically

acclaimed director of "Barbara" (Berlinale 2012 Best Director) and "Yella" (Berlinale 2007 Best Actress – Nina Hoss)

Present: Christian Petzold (director), Nina Hoss (actress), Florian Koerner von Gustorf (producer)

World Sales: The Match Factory

Fri 5 – 18:00 (Public 1 – Elgin/Visa Screening Room)

Sat 6 – 11:30 (Public 2 – Elgin/Visa Screening Room)

Sat 6 – 12:30 (Press/Industry 1 – Scotiabank 2)

Tue 9 - 14:00 (Press/Industry 2 - Scotiabank 14)

Fri 12 - 14:15 (Press/Industry 3 - Scotiabank 7

"Itsi Bitsi"

Ole Christian Madsen

In the soul-searching psychedelic 60s, a rebellious young man desperately tries to win a beautiful woman’s love by transforming from poet to writer, nomad to junkie and eventually rock star...

The new film by Ole Christian Madsen, acclaimed director of "Superclásico," "Flame and Citron" and "Prague."

Present: Ole Christian Madsen (director), Joachim Fjelstrup (actor), Marie Tourell Søderberg (actress), Lars Lars Bredo Rahbek (producer)

World Sales: The Match Factory

Sat 6 – 8:30 (Press/Industry 1 – Scotiabank 9)

Sat 6 – 17:15 (Public 1 – Scotiabank 4)

Sun 7 – 9:30 (Public 2 – Bloor Hot Docs Cinema)

Tue 9 - 17:30 (Press/Industry 2 - Scotiabank 7)

Fri 12 – 17:00 (Public 3 – Isabel Bader)

"1001 Grams"

Bent Hamer

Urbane urbanite Marie is a thirty-something scientist whose life is rigorously controlled. When she attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and, not least, love, that ends up on the scale. As she explores her new possibilities, everything seems to unfurl magically, beautiful.

Featuring Ane Dahl Torp (Pioneer, Cold Lunch) in a charmingly offbeat comedy from Norwegian master Bent Hamer ("Kitchen Stories," "O'Horten"). A co-production: Norway (BulBul), France (Slot Machine), Germany (Pandora)

Present: Bent Hamer (director), Ane Dahl Torp (actress), Marianne Slot (producer)

World Sales: Les Films du Losangne

Fri 5 – 14:00 (Press/Industry 1 – Scotiabank 3)

Sun 7 – 19:15 (Public 1 – Tiff Bell Lightbox 1)

Tue 9 - 9:30 (Press/Industry 2 - Scotiabank 4)

Tue 9 – 14:45 (Public 2 – Scotiabank 2)

Sun 14 – 19:00 (Public 3 – Tiff Bell Lightbox 1)

"Tigers"

Danis Tanovic

Devastated when he discovers the effects of the infant formula he’s peddling, a young salesman takes on a multinational corporation, in this based-on-fact drama from Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanovic ("No Man's Land").

Featuring Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi ("Once Upon a Time in Mumbai"). A co-production: India (Cinemorphic Pvt Ltd & Sikhya Entertainment), France (Asap Films)

Present: Danis Tanovic (director), Emraan Hashmi (actor), Geetanjali (actress), Khalid Abdalla (actor), Prashita Chaudhary (producer), Guneet Monga (producer), Cédomir Kolar (producer), Andy Paterson (producer, co-writer), Achin Jain (executive producer)

World Sales: The Match Factory

Sun 7 – 14:00 (Press/Industry 1 – Scotiabank 10)

Mon 8 – 21:45 (Public 1 – Scotiabank 1)

Wed 10 - 21:15 (Press/Industry 2 - Scotiabank 7)

Wed 10 – 21:30 (Public 2 – Scotiabank 3)

Sat 13 – 17:00 (Public 3 – Tiff Bell Lightbox 1

"Natural Resistance"

Jonathan Nossiter

Four Italian winegrowers of a rapidly spreading European natural wine revolution have encountered fierce resistance. Not everyone believes in their struggle for an ecologically progressive, economically just and historically rich expression of Italian

agriculture…

10 years after "Mondovino" world acclaimed director Jonathan Nossiter offers a model of charmed and joyous ecological and cinematic resistance against the new world economic order.

Present: Jonathan Nossiter (director)

Sat 6 – 11:15 (Press/Industry 1 – Scotiabank 7),

Mon 8 – 19:00 (Public 1 – Tiff Bell Lightbox 3)

Tue 9 – 19:00 (Public 2 – Jackman Hall)

Thu 11 – 17:45 (Public 3 – Bloor Hot Docs Cinema)...

If you've been paying attention to world cinema at all, Christian Petzold is likely a name known to you. The filmmaker broke out in a big way with his 2008 feature "Jerichow," and his powerful 2012 effort "Barbara" only cemented his reputation. Now the director is back with "Phoenix," and the first trailer has arrived. Set to make its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie stars frequent collaborator Nina Hoss, who also featured in the aforementioned films, as well as 2007's "Yella". Here's the official synopsis: Set after the Second World War, Phoenix tells the story of Nelly, a disfigured Holocaust survivor (Nina Hoss). Unrecognizable after facial reconstruction surgery, Nelly returns to find out if her husband (Ronald Zehrfeld) has betrayed her or loves her. There's no U.S. distribution for the movie just yet. Watch the international trailer below.

Phoenix

Director: Christian Petzold

Writer: Christian Petzold

Producers: Schramm Film Koerner & Weber

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Uwe Preuss

One of the best films of 2012 happened to be Christian Petzold’s film Barbara starring the exquisite Nina Hoss. Petzold has been steadily churning out remarkable work in feature films since his 2000 debut The State I Am In (and for several years prior in television). While Hoss has headlined a few of his works (Yella, Jerichow ), the Berlin premiered Barbara finally seemed to command the attention he’s deserved (he won the Director Silver Bear), and he’s back again with Hoss in tow for another period piece, Phoenix (which also reunites him with Ronald Zehrfeld).

Gist: While Barbara was set in the German Democratic Republic of the early 1980s, Phoenix goes back to the post-Second World War era, focusing on a woman who has survived the Holocaust.

★★★★☆ Winner of the Silver Bear prize at last year's Berlinale and directed by acclaimed German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Yella, Beats Being Dead), Barbara (2012) is a stark yet engrossing drama told against the icy backdrop of the East/West German political divide. Featuring an outstandingly suffocated central performance from the always impressive Nina Hoss, this is an artful, chilly period piece, told with subtlety and restraint through quiet moments of brilliance, rather than heightened emotional sentiment. With it, Petzold once again cements himself as one of contemporary German cinema's brightest lights.

Read more »...

11. Zama – Dir. Lucretia Martel

Why This Makes Top 10: At number eleven we have Argentinean filmmaker Lucretia Martel’s latest film, her first since 2008’s The Headless Woman (a film that critics were slow to warm to, but ended up being on many a best end of year list in 2008/2009). Previous titles include her stunning debut, 2001’s La Cienega, along with 2004’s The Holy Girl. Her latest is a period piece based on the novel by Antonio de Benedetto and will be produced by Lita Stantic, El Deseo (the Almodovar Bros’ company), as well as a still to be named French producer. Martel is one of the most prolific names to come out the New Argentinean Wave and this looks to be a massively mounted period piece we’re eager to get a look at.

The Gist: Written in 1956, Zama is an existential novel about Don Diego de Zama, a...

5. Amour – Dir. Michael Haneke (Austria)

Winner of the Palme D’or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the second for auteur Michael Haneke, much mention has been made about this being Haneke’s warmest, most human film. I agree that the film is quite moving, giving us two cinematic legends at their late career best, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant (who came out of retirement to do the film), and a moving supporting performance from Haneke favorite, Isabelle Huppert. However, I don’t really agree with classifying this as a warm or even human picture. Haneke’s glacially cold gaze doesn’t warm up at all here, simply showing us a final act of kindness born just as much out of pragmatic selfishness as it could be out of love. This is an unflinching look at the cruelty of life and nature, and those desperately looking for evidence of Haneke losing...

With Barbara, German auteur Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow) delivers one of 2012′s better character studies, a tense and sparing Cold War-era drama about a female doctor (Petzold muse Nina Hoss) who’s relegated to a hospital near the Baltic Sea after trying to leave the German Democratic Republic. It’s 1980, and the movie effortlessly conveys the period in all its stark unease. Honored at the 62nd Berlinale and serving as Germany’s official Foreign-Language entry for the 85th Academy Awards, Barbara sees its eponymous heroine grapple with the restraints of politics and her own fears in a manner as mysterious as it …...

The 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival has just been voted Best Film Festival Ever!……..maybe……if it hasn’t it should because this year’s fest has provided a breathtaking variety of docs, dramas, foreign flix, comedies, shorts, and….you name it!

Sliff.s main venues are the the Hi-Pointe Theatre, Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University.s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University.s Brown Hall Auditorium and the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Il

The entire schedule for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival be found Here.

http://cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2012

Here is what will be screening at The 21st Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival today, Friday, November 16th

Alter Egos

Alter Egos plays at 5:00pm at the Tivoli Theatre – Read The Wamg Review By Dana Jung Here

In the alternative world of Ârdizes an important mission with he discovers his...

Strong ticket sales is welcome news for cinema chains, and marks a benchmark for Joseph Gordon-Levitt in lead role

The winner

Just when it looked as if September was going to go by without a single film opening above £2m, Looper arrives to kick some much-needed life into a sickly UK box office. Its three-day gross of £2.43m is hardly record-shattering, but following a run of films opening around or under £1m – Killing Them Softly, The Sweeney, Dredd, Lawless, Anna Karenina – it is welcome news for the nation's cinema chains. It's also a new benchmark for Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a lead role. Premium Rush recently debuted with a disappointing £115,000 from 159 cinemas. Last November, 50/50, co-starring Seth Rogen, kicked off with £410,000 from 228 venues. In 2009, (500) Days of Summer began its run with £1.24m, including £383,000 in previews. Debuts of films such as Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, where Gordon-Levitt is not the lead actor,...

A German director deserving to be better known in England, Christian Petzold has a particular interest in the problems attendant upon his country's reunification. In Yella he forged a gripping business thriller out of the dilemmas of an accountant escaping from her psychopathic husband in a moribund town on the Polish border to work in Hanover for a shifty businessman exploiting companies on the brink of collapse. His new film centres on Dr Barbara Wolff, a paediatrician exiled to a remote East German hospital on the Baltic coast east of Lübeck in 1980 after having had the temerity to apply for a visa to join her lover in the west. The cruel Stasi are all around, undermining decent relationships, ever ready to conduct strip-searches at the hint of any offence against the state, and they rightly suspect Barbara of being up to something – in fact plotting to get out illegally.

Working...

Oscar, continually bewildering himself with rule changesRULE Changes & The Big Show

If you thought you heard paradoxical wild-mild applause at Oscar's new rule changes that was, uh, me. The Art Direction category will now be called Production Design which is all well and good since it's the Production Designer (aka the boss) that wins the prize, not the Art Director (who reports to him/her). The Best Original Song category finally gave up its horrifically unfair voting procedures where you could sabotage competitors rather than voting for them (yuck) by scoring them with low marks and now it'll be a simpler process with a standard five nominees and ranked nomination ballots like all the other categories. I'm going to pretend that this is The Film Experience's fault for our years of bitching about how screwed up that voting process was. Oh shush. It's possible we talked some sense into them.

Of all directors working in Germany today, Christian Petzold has the surest hand and, while, after just one viewing, it's too early to stake a claim for Barbara as his best film yet, it is, in many ways, a culmination of his stylistic progression towards a classic yet vividly contemporary cinematic language. Referencing influences in interviews — like many directors who can afford the time, Petzold likes to screen films for his cast in the weeks of rehearsal before shooting begins — he's been citing quite a few of late from both Golden Age and New Hollywood. The ghost of Marnie moves through Yella (2007) in the way a camera follows a woman up a set of stairs. Jerichow (2008) transposes The Postman Always Rings Twice from the oppressive shadows of film noir to a sun-drenched summer in present-day Germany. Of the three films that comprise Dreileben (2011), Petzold's Beats Being Dead is the one...

Nina Hoss in Christian Petzold's Barbara

"An additional ten world premieres will be screening in the Competition program of the Berlinale 2012," the festival's announced today:

Aujourd'hui

France/Senegal

By Alain Gomis (L'Afrance, Andalucia)

With Saül Williams, Aïssa Maïga, Djolof M'bengue

"What goes on inside the head of a man who knows he has only 24 hours to live?" begins a report from the Afp. "Franco-Senegalese director Alain Gomis takes viewers through this final day."

Barbara

Germany

By Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow, Dreileben)

With Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld

The synopsis from The Match Factory: "East Germany. Barbara has requested a departure permit. It is the summer of 1978. She is a physician and is transferred, for disciplinary reasons, to a small hospital far away from everything in a provincial backwater. Her lover, a foreign trade employee at Mannesmann that she met on a spring night in East Berlin, is working on her escape.

The 2012 Berlinale has announced ten additional films as part of its Competition lineup, including Billy Bob Thornton's "Jayne Mansfield's Car." In addition, Angelina Jolie's directorial debut "In the Land of Blood and Honey" will screen as a Berlinale Special screening. The ten films announced today join the ten announced in December and the opening night film "Farewell My Queen" from Benoit Jacquot to round out the festival's competition slate. The ten competition titles announced today: "Aujourd´hui" France/Senegal By Alain Gomis (L´Afrance, Andalucia) With Saül Williams, Aïssa Maïga, Djolof M'bengue World premiere "Barbara Germany" By Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow, Dreileben) With Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld World premiere "Cesare deve morire" (Caesar Must Die) Italy By Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre padrone, La notte di San...

The 49th New York Film Festival has announced their Masterworks and Special Anniversary screenings that will show between the festival’s seventeen days, September 30th – October 16th. The Masterworks program and the festival’s additional programming will provide audiences with exciting opportunities to explore new film-making styles and storytelling events. To learn more about the Masterworks and Anniversary films, please check out below for full synopsis and details.

Masterworks And Special Anniversary Screenings

Masterworks: The Gold Rush

Chaplin’s personal favorite among his own films, The Gold Rush (1925), is a beautifully constructed comic fable of fate and perseverance, set in the icy wastes of the Alaskan gold fields. Re-released by Chaplin in 1942 in a recut version missing some scenes, and with added narration and musical score, The Gold Rush will be presented in a new restoration of the original, silent 1925 version. In this frequently terrifying and always unpredictable universe of...

With a new film from Sally Potter arriving online and John Boorman and Peter Greenaway's latest work exclusively hitting DVD shelves, enjoying a night at the movies no longer necessarily means at your local theater (though we've got the lowdown of what's playing there as well). From August to October, one doesn't need to move from the couch to see a Val Kilmer double bill, a James Franco-Sienna Miller romantic comedy and the last performance from the late, great Natasha Richardson, not to mention Robert Pattinson and Jet Li imports and a host of foreign films and documentaries well worth your time on demand, online and on DVD.

More Fall Preview: [Theatrical Calendar]

[Repertory Calendar] [Breakout Performances]

On Demand The slow days of summer may be drawing to an end, but our sister company IFC Films is already ramping up for the fall with a slate heading straight from the festivals to the...

Let's hear it for Nina Hoss. The German ac tress impressed with her work in "Yella" and "Jerichow," both of which received releases here.

Now Hoss is back with another fine performance, in "A Woman in Berlin," written and directed by Max Faberbock.

This time she's a 30-year-old woman, known only as Anonyma, living in Berlin as the Red Army conquers it in 1945.

The Nazi troops may be out of the way, but the women of Berlin aren't

necessarily celebrating. The Russians have decided any female they come upon is fair game,...

"Jerichow" review  By Steve Ramos, Writer   Cruel, cool 'Jerichow' is a suspense drama equal to a Raymond Chandler novel     Instead of the sprawling Los Angeles backdrop of "Double Indemnity,"  German filmmaker Christian Petzold sets his cool, cruel film noir in a sparsely populated, economically devastated region of Northeastern Germany near the North Sea. This may sound like an odd setting for a movie type deeply connected with urban settings but "Jerichow," named after a small German town in the area, has the rich characters, deeply-felt passions and climactic surprises equal to anything from a Raymond Chandler or James M. Cain novel.   Opening in NY Friday, Jerichow, Petzold's suspenseful follow-up to last year's Yella, will expand to select U.S. cities throughout the summer. "Jerichow' may lack the profile of the numerous Hollywood blockbusters flooding theaters but it's hard to imagine a better thriller this summer.   Much of...

Cruel, cool 'Jerichow' is a suspense drama equal to a Raymond Chandler novel Instead of the sprawling Los Angeles backdrop of "Double Indemnity," German filmmaker Christian Petzold sets his cool, cruel film noir in a sparsely populated, economically devastated region of Northeastern Germany near the North Sea. This may sound like an odd setting for a movie type deeply connected with urban settings but "Jerichow," named after a small German town in the area, has the rich characters, deeply-felt passions and climactic surprises equal to anything from a Raymond Chandler or James M. Cain novel. Opening in NY Friday, Jerichow, Petzold's suspenseful follow-up to last year's Yella, will expand to select U.S. cities throughout the summer. "Jerichow' may lack the profile of the numerous Hollywood blockbusters flooding theaters but it's hard to imagine a better thriller this summer.

Cruel, cool 'Jerichow' is a suspense drama equal to a Raymond Chandler novel Instead of the sprawling Los Angeles backdrop of "Double Indemnity," German filmmaker Christian Petzold sets his cool, cruel film noir in a sparsely populated, economically devastated region of Northeastern Germany near the North Sea. This may sound like an odd setting for a movie type deeply connected with urban settings but "Jerichow," named after a small German town in the area, has the rich characters, deeply-felt passions and climactic surprises equal to anything from a Raymond Chandler or James M. Cain novel. Opening in NY Friday, Jerichow, Petzold's suspenseful follow-up to last year's Yella, will expand to select U.S. cities throughout the summer. "Jerichow' may lack the profile of the numerous Hollywood blockbusters flooding theaters but it's hard to imagine a better thriller this summer.

Your guide to what's new in theaters this week: Offbeat foreign fare compliments star-studded domestic offerings, alongside some intriguing and inventive docs.

Download this in audio form (MP3: 08:58 minutes, 12.3 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]

"Anaglyph Tom (Tom With Puffy Cheeks)"

Forty years after "Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son," his groundbreaking interpretation of Thomas Edison's turn-of-the-century short, experimentalist and paracinema pioneer Ken Jacobs returns to Edison's original print, this time with a mind to work his singular magic in gloriously vibrant 3-D. Employing digital technology to isolate actors and images and intermingle the themes of his 1969 film with present day footage of the economic crisis, Jacobs orchestrates a cinematic ballet where the past and the present literally dance together before our eyes.

Opens in New York.

"Angels and Demons"

Despite the fact that some viewers who turned out to see Ron Howard's lumbering, talk-heavy 2006 blockbuster...

We're all for getting out in the summertime, but there might not be anything more refreshing than cooling off in a movie theater... or seeing a movie in the comfort of your air-conditioned home on demand, on DVD, or online... or better yet catching a classic on the big screen at a nearby repertory theater. With literally hundreds of films to choose from this summer, we humbly present this guide to the season's most exciting offerings.

May 1

"Eldorado"

The Cast: Bouli Lanners, Fabrice Adde, Philippe Nahon, Didier Toupy, Franise Chichy

Director: Bouli Lanners

Fest Cred: Cannes, Warsaw, Glasgow, Palm Springs,

The Gist: When Elie (Adde), a hapless young thief attempts to rob Yvan (Lanners), a 40-year-old car dealer, the two form a unlikely friendship that leads to a road trip across Belgium in this slight comedy that won the Best European Film at the Director's Fortnight at Cannes last year.

"Jerichow" is helmed and written by Christian Petzold, an multiple award-winning director. His credits include 2003's "Wolfsburg," Gespenster of 2005 and "Yella," a winner of the Fermina-Film-Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear awards at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. "Jerichow," a nominee of the Golden Lion Award at last year's Venice Film Festival, stars Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer, André M. Hennicke, Claudia Geisler, Marie Gruber and Knut Berger. The film sees release release at the Film Forum in New York City as well as the Laemble in Los Angeles on May 15th. See more images About the film: Jerichow, a small town in northeastern Germany, an impoverished region where few jobs are to be had, an area of crisscrossing highways, deep forests, and cliffs that fall sharply into the sea, is the setting for an unfolding drama of three people who find themselves at a fortuitous crossroads. Following his mother’s death,...

"Jerichow" is helmed and written by Christian Petzold, an multiple award-winning director. His credits include 2003's "Wolfsburg," Gespenster of 2005 and "Yella," a winner of the Fermina-Film-Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear awards at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. "Jerichow," a nominee of the Golden Lion Award at last year's Venice Film Festival, stars Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer, André M. Hennicke, Claudia Geisler, Marie Gruber and Knut Berger. The film sees release release at the Film Forum in New York City as well as the Laemble in Los Angeles on May 15th.

"Jerichow" is helmed and written by Christian Petzold, an multiple award-winning director. His credits include 2003's "Wolfsburg," Gespenster of 2005 and "Yella," a winner of the Fermina-Film-Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear awards at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. "Jerichow," a nominee of the Golden Lion Award at last year's Venice Film Festival, stars Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer, André M. Hennicke, Claudia Geisler, Marie Gruber and Knut Berger. The film sees release release at the Film Forum in New York City as well as the Laemble in Los Angeles on May 15th.

New Yorker assets were auctioned off on March 12 by Technicolor. Meanwhile The Cinema Guild will launch a new home video label with two titles originally slated to go through New Yorker Home Video. The first release will be Christian Petzold’s Yella on March 31, and the second will be Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra on April 28. The Cinema Guild will take over the distribution of three other titles, recently released through New Yorker Home Video, The Order of Myths and The Unforeseen - both Independent Spirit Award winners, and Primo Levi’s Journey.

Cinetic Rights Management recently closed a deal with Cinema Guild to help distribute their video titles online. This will begin in April with titles such as The Unforeseen. The films will be released on portals such as iTunes, Amazon VOD, Hulu, SnagFilms, Joost, and more.

Zeitgeist Films also made a related deal, acquiring the company’s Three Monkeys.

It is New Yorker Films' sincere hope that the purchaser of their assets will be a well qualified distributor with the intention and ability to manage and distribute the films in a manner consistent with New Yorker Film's 43 year history in the independent film world.

• Doc and foreign film specialist The Cinema Guild seem to be Christian Petzold's best way to get into the U.S. market. After releasing the German filmmaker's Yella, the distrib has picked up his latest film which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. IndieWIRE reports that Jerichow will open theatrically early in the year. Off the beaten path of life, three people stumble into a fateful encounter. Thomas, young and strong, has been dishonorably discharged from the army. Ali, an affable Turkish businessman, has seen some hard times but now his primary concern is making sure the employees of his snack-bars don’t cheat on him. Laura, an attractive woman with a dark past, seems to find refuge in the shadows of her marriage to Ali.Thomas, Ali, and Laura keep an eye on each other and keep their secrets to themselves. They want love but also security.

...

Coming into Christian Petzold‘s rural neo-noir, it might be helpful to have an understanding of the films that he is aiming to re-create. Like his previous film, Yella, which played with the conventions of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in the context of modern Germany, Jerichow (presumably named after the town where the film is set) teases audience expectations with their own knowledge of the rich history of noir cinema. Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice even The Last Seduction are bound to guide and confound where the plot is (or should) be going. That Petzold lingers, drops red herrings and shifts audience loyalty between the three characters is one of the joys of the piece. While in the end it comes across a bit more like precise clock work than a living, breathing simulacrum is a bit frustrating however.

By Neil Pedley

After last week's ridiculously crowded release schedule, this week's is somewhat more manageable.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"

Fans salivating at the prospect of some post-Middle Earth fantasy creature smackdown were left disappointed last time around as, for all its promise, initial "Narnia" installment "The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe" possessed about as much bite as a hibernating tortoise. Looking to fill the hole left by a certain boy wizard in the summer release schedule, the second adventure into Narnia sees the four Pevensie siblings summoned back to the fantastical world to find that 1300 years have passed and their former kingdom lies in ruins. Joining forces with heir to the throne Prince Caspian (Ben Bames), the children lead a renegade army into battle against the tyrannical King Miraz, seeking to restore Narnia and bring about peace once more.

Opens wide.

"My Father, My Lord"

The...

COLOGNE, Germany -- The German Film academy handed veteran director Doris Dorrie the equivalent of a golden bouquet Friday, nominating her latest drama Cherry Blossoms for six Lolas, the German equivalent of the Oscar.

Close behind were Fatih Akin's cross-cultural drama The Edge of Heaven with five Lola nominations and Christian Petzold's cerebral mystery thriller Yella with four.

Dorrie's film -- a sweetly tragic story of a terminally ill widower who travels to Japan to fulfill a lifelong dream of his dead wife -- picked up Lola noms in most of the main categories, including best film, best director and best actor for star Elmar Wepper.

Wepper has to be considered a front runner for the best actor Lola but he will be going up against two local veterans: Matthias Brandt for his role as an abused husband in Jan Bonny's Counterparts and Ulrich Noethen for his comic turn as a husband stuck in a midlife crisis in Rainer Kaufmann's crossover hit Runaway Horse.

Nina Hoss picked up a Lola nomination for her starring turn in Yella, a role for which she won the best actress Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival last year. Also nominated are Dutch actress Carice van Houten for Paul Verhoeven's World War II thriller Black Book (a German-Dutch co-production) and Victoria Trauttmansdorff as a husband-beating wife in Counterparts.

Cherry Blossoms has been getting rave reviews from German and international critics since its debut at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. Many consider it the best film in Dorrie's long career.

The 52-year-old director made her name with light comedies including "Men" (1985) and The Fisher and His Wife (2005). While her films were often boxoffice hits, they were usually snubbed come awards time. Dorrie has only one Lola -- or German Film Award -- to her credit: a best screenplay prize in 1985 for her script to Men.

But this year her movie is the one to beat in what is a surprisingly diverse field.

BERLIN -- Tuya's Marriage, by Chinese director Wang Quan'an, was the surprise winner of this year's Golden Bear for Best Film at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival.

The Golden and Silver Bears were presented Saturday night at a gala ceremony at the Berlinale Palast.

The story of a Mongolian shepherd forced by encroaching industrialization to abandon the steeps for the city, Marriage stars Yu Nan. It was picked from among 22 In Competition films in what most observers called the best Berlinale lineup in years.

Accepting the trophy from jury president Paul Schrader, Wang said he couldn't imagine a better gift for Chinese New Year.

"When I started making films, my teacher said film should show people's dreams." he said. "This film made my dreams come true."

German actress Nina Hoss won the Best Actress Silver Bear for her bravura performance as an East German woman trying to escape unemployment and a violent husband by fleeing to the West in Christian Petzold's well-received Yella.

"I was sure it was going to go to Marianne Faithfull," said a clearly surprised Hoss, referring to the British pop icon who was widely tipped to win for her performance in Irina Palm as a woman who turns to a job in a sex club to pay her grandson's hospital bills.

Another surprise was the Best Actor Silver Bear, which went to Argentina's Julio Chavez for his role in Ariel Rotter's The Other.

Chavez's subdued performance as a man who takes on a new identity after his father dies and his wife becomes pregnant won over this year's jury, which included actors Gael Garcia Bernal, Willem Dafoe, Hiam Abbass and Mario Adorf, producer Nansun Shi and film editor Molly Malene Stensgaard.

Other also won the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix.

The Best Directing Silver Bear went to Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar for his drama Beaufort, about the last Israeli military unit to leave Lebanon in 2000.

American films didn't go home entirely empty-handed, with Robert De Niro's CIA drama The Good Shepherd winning a special Silver Bear for the performance of the film's ensemble, which included De Niro, Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie.

The Chinese New Year got off to a spectacular start in Berlin when director Wang Quan'an was awarded the film festival's top honor, the Golden Bear, for Tuya's Marriage. The Chinese movie, which is set in Inner Mongolia, was named on Saturday. A thrilled Wang said, "A very beautiful dream has become reality for me here. Perhaps this is the last glance at the herds people of the region. Ultimately they are going to disappear into the cities. I think that it is important, particularly in this time when the economy is booming, to ponder and reflect on what we're losing." US-born Israeli Joseph Cedar took Best Director for his war drama Beaufort at the film festival, while Best Actor and Actress prizes went to Julio Chavez (The Other) and Nina Hoss (Yella) respectively. Actor-turned-moviemaker Robert De Niro also had a share of the accolades - The Good Shepherd, his drama on the origins of the CIA intelligence service, won for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.