Notizie

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” defied expectations last week when it nabbed Oscar nominations for best picture, director, adapted screenplay and international feature. The Japanese movie, released domestically by venerable art-house distributor Janus Films, surpassed titles with more robust campaigns, including Amazon’s “Being the Ricardos” and Netflix’s “Tick, Tick … Boom!”

Even Hamaguchi was surprised by the noms.

“I could have never imagined that I would be a realistic contender,” he tells Variety, speaking through Stacy Lee, a Japanese interpreter. “In terms of the campaign, it was a steady effort where people at Janus made these recommendations. They also have very strong connections with the critics and other parts of the community.”

Hamaguchi tells the story of being on a plane with no internet when the nominations were announced, and receiving about 60 text messages when it landed.

Recent changes to the Academy’s membership and voting methods have...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September).

In another change to the eligibility rules,...

As the weather gets hotter and the film industry continues to face an uncertain future, one thing is crystal clear: There will be plenty of new movies to watch this summer — good ones, in fact — but there isn’t going to be a Summer Movie Season. There isn’t going to be a major blockbuster that makes you feel like a kid again (unless “Tenet” surprises); there isn’t going to be a silly comedy that you’ll associate with the smell of artificial popcorn butter for the rest of your life; there isn’t going to be a small movie with mass appeal that plays in arthouse circuit until the end of August. And though it’s still only the start of May, we can already tell that we’re going to miss the cancelled 2020 Summer Movie Season more than we ever would have guessed.

So we decided to...

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

The 93 submissions for the best international feature award at the 2020 Oscars have been announced, and Screen has kept a list of all the entries below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

Scroll down for latest entries

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Which film will follow on from ‘Roma’ in winning the prize?

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2020 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

This is the first year the award will be given under the new name of ‘best international feature film’, after a change in April from ‘foreign-language film’.

The eligibility rules remain the same: an international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the Us with a predominantly non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Austrian producer Martin Gschlacht has been an active proponent of Austrian (and eventually Iranian) cinema since the late 1990s, and has quietly amassed a coterie of regular collaborators, including Jessica Hausner, Götz Spielmann and directing duo Shirin Neshat & Shoja Azari (including their titles Women Without Men in 2009 and Looking for Oum Kulthum in 2017).

Notably, Gschlacht started out as and is perhaps more notable as a cinematographer, beginning his career with Hausner, lensing her early short Inter-View (1999) and all of her subsequent features, from her 2001 debut Lovely Rita to her latest English language debut, Little Joe, which finally sees the Austrian director ascend into the Cannes competition in 2019.…...

Mexican feature Perpetual Sadness and Israeli drama Next to Her take top prizes at Greek festival.Scroll down for full list of winners

Mexican director Jorge Perez Solorzano’s Perpetual Sadness (La Tirisia) was named best film at the 55th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Oct 31 - Nov 9) winning the Golden Alexander.

It beat competition from 13 other first and second films screened in this year’s international competition section.

The film deals with the stoicism and the sadness shared by women in a remote village facing the departure of their sons in search of work. World sales are handled by Media Luna.

It marks the second consecutive year that a Mexican production has won top honours at Thessaloniki. Last year, Diego Quemada-Diez’s Golden Dream (La jaula de oro) scooped the top award as well as best director.

Some 10 Mexican features have played in competition at the festival since 2000, winning cropping 12 principal awards.

Israeli feature...

White God and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence bookend the 55th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

The 55th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Oct 31-Nov 9) kicks off today with the Cannes Certain Regard Gran Prix awarded White God by Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó.

It concludes November 9 with the Venice Golden Lion awarded A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence by Swedish director Roy Andersson.

Both directors will be present as they are set to also receive homages.

Also receiving tributes are legendary German actress Hanna Schygulla, Us director Ramin Bahrani and his Serbian colleague Želimir Žilnik.

They will enjoy retrospectives of their films and will offer master classes.

Among others attending are Fatih Akin to present The Cut, Ira Sachs to introduce Love Is Strange co-produced by local production powerhouse, Christos Konstantakopoulos’ Faliro House boasting among its international coproductions slate Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive plus two upcomig Terrence Malick films in post...

Götz Spielmann is a very intelligent director and he always seems to know exactly what he wants. In October November he creates an intense drama that sometimes gains emotional ground due to Spielmann's control and sometimes looses because it is just too controlled.It is a family drama encircling the life of two sisters and their dying father. Spielmann puts a lot into the mix: One of the sisters, Sonja, played by Nora von Waldstätten, is an actress and has lost her connection to home. She returns from an isolated life in the big city when her father gets ill.The second woman Verena, played by Ursula Strauss, has an affair with the doctor, who is played in a cheesy, almost embarrassing way by Sebastian Koch.The problem...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Richard Curtis’ time-travel romance wins European Film award; other prizes go to films by Kore-eda, Tavernier, Teplitzky and Vallee.

The 61st San Sebastian Film Festival has awarded Richard Curtis comedy About Time the prize for European Film.

The film stars Domnhall Gleeson as a young man who discovers he can travel in time and uses his newfound power to get a girlfriend, played by Rachel McAdams. It has played at film festivals in Edinburgh, Locarno and Rio, and is heading for New York and the Hamptons.

San Sebastian, which draws to a close today, also handed out a raft of other awards.

The Wuaki.TV Audience Award went to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son, which won the Jury Award at Cannes in May.

Jim Taihuttu’s Dutch drama Wolf picked up the Youth Award.

The Fipresci Award went to Bertrand Tavernier’s political satire Quai d’Orsay, based on a French comic of the same...

The fare on offer at the Spanish film festival underlines film-makers' enduring fascination with the doppelganger

The San Sebastián film festival is in its fourth day, and if there's a theme emerging, it's this: doubles, mirror images, doppelgangers. All over the festival, actors are bumping enigmatically into themselves.

In Arie Posin's The Face of Love, Annette Bening plays a woman whose husband (Ed Harris) tragically dies: some time later, she finds herself attracted to a man with a striking resemblance to her late partner, played of course by Ed Harris. In Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a regular guy with a regular life who bumps into a minor-league actor with an uncanny resemblance to him: Gyllenhaal again.

I arrived at the festival last night, in time to see Cannibal, directed by Manuel Martín Cuenca. It's about a homicidal young tailor in Granada called Carlos, with a sinister...

Götz Spielmann presents his new film at this years Toronto International Film Festival. It's a story about two sisters who meet in a small Austrian village to be with their dying father. According to the official synopsis: A new chapter begins; old relationships are reconfigured. The reunion slowly but relentlessly brings to light old conflicts between the so very different sisters. Spielmann is one of the most successful contemporary Austrian filmmakers. He became internationally famous in 2008 for his film Revanche, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film. This film appears to be a sparse drama, a character study about families with issues under the backdrop of gorgeous scenery. The film screens at Tiff tonight, followed by two more screenings on...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Götz Spielmann’s “October November” might be the quietest drama of 2013, an intimate, somber study of one family’s unsaid truths. It is also, however, a film that leaves little impression, making it a step backwards—or, at the very least, sideways—for the director of the stunning “Revanche.” Spielmann’s 2008 character study/thriller was deservedly nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (2009), and drew an international spotlight to the Austrian filmmaker. His much-anticipated follow-up, “October November,” made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and while it plays reasonably well in a festival setting, it is unlikely to make waves worldwide. It is a family tale, a European cousin of some of Woody Allen’s Bergman-esque dramas (specifically “Interiors” and even “September”); if Mike Leigh had not already used the title “Secrets and Lies,” it would have been dead-on here. Sonja (Nora von Waldstätten) and Verena...

Kyle Catlett and Helena Bonham Carter in The Young and Prodigious T S Spivet, which will receive its world premiere as the closing night gala of San Sebastian Film Festival 2013. The world premiere of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The Young and Prodigious T S Spivet will close this year's San Sebastian Film Festival.

Shot in 3D, the film stars Kyle Catlett as T. S. Spivet, a 12-year-old child prodigy who lives on a ranch in Montana. When a scientific institute announces that he has won a prestigious award, he sets out across the country to collect it. The film also features Helena Bonham-Carter, who will attend the closing gala.

The festival organisers have also added Academy Award-nominated director Atom Egoyan's new film Devil's Knot to the official section.

About the 1993 "West Memphis Three" murders and starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, the film joins Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić's For Those...

Atom Egoyan, Götz Spielmann and Jasmila Žbanic have been added the official selection at the 61st San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Three new titles have joined those already announced for the official competition of the festival, which runs from Sept 20-28.

They include Devil’s Knot, starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, from Us director Atom Egoyan. He competed four years ago in the 57th edition of the festival with Chloe. Egoyan returns with a true mystery of who killed three children in a small town.

Also added are For Those Who Can Tell No Tales by Bosian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2006 with her film Grbavica.

Žbanić returns to the traumatic past of the Balkan War through Kym, an Australian tourist who decides to travel to Višegrad, a small town on the border of Bosnia and Serbia, where she discovers what happened there during the war.

The third new...

The 38th Toronto International Film Festival has released an incredible guest list of celebrated talent from around the globe. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Catherine Breillat, Nicole Garcia, Pawel Pawlikowski, Bertrand Tavernier, Steve McQueen, Godfrey Reggio, Denis Villeneuve, Bill Condon, Jean-Marc Vallée, John Wells, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Ayoade, Atom Egoyan, Matthew Weiner, John Carney, Jason Reitman, Jason Bateman, Yorgos Servetas, Liza Johnson, Megan Griffiths, Fernando Eimbcke, Alexey Uchitel, Johnny Ma, Biyi Bandele, Rashid Masharawi, Paul Haggis, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, Álex de la Iglesia, Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, John Ridley, and Justin Chadwick.

The Festival also welcomes thousands of producers and other industry professionals bringing films to us.

The following filmmakers and artists are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Ahmad Abdalla, Hany Abu-Assad, Yuval Adler, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Alexandre Aja, Bruce Alcock, Gianni Amelio, Thanos Anastopoulos, Madeline Anderson, Nimród Antal, Louise Archambault,...

Final batch of Tiff titles were announced today and among the international hodgepodge of items trickling we find Berlin (Golden Bear winner Child’s Pose), Cannes (The Selfish Giant – Europa Cinemas Label winner and Stranger by the Lake by Alain Guiraudie), Karlovy Vary (Crystal Globe winner Le Grand Cahier ) and Locarno (Corneliu Porumboiu’s When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism) Film Fest items added to the Toronto Int. Film Festival’s Contemporary World Cinema lineup. Alongside those that have already premiered elsewhere, the titles that have got our attention are world premiere offerings from the likes of award-winning Icelandic helmer Ragnar Bragason (Metalhead), Revanche‘s Götz Spielmann (October November – see pic above) and Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke’s Club Sandwich. Here’s the added titles to the section which already includes: Catherine Martin’s A Journey (Une Jeune Fille), Ingrid Veninger’s The Animal Project, Terry Miles’ Cinemanovels, Bruce Sweeney...

World premieres of Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now, Fred Schepisi’s Words And Pictures and John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo are among the Tiff line-up of galas and special presentations.

The Contemporary World Cinema strand includes first views of Jan Hrebejk’s Honeymoon, Donovan Marsh’s iNumber Number and Fernando Coimbra’s A Wolf At The Door.

The Toronto International Film Festival is scheduled to run from Sept 5-15.

Wp = World premiere

IP = International premiere

Np = North American premiere

Cp = Canadian premiere

Tp = Toronto premiere

GALASBlood Ties Guillaume Canet (France-us) NAPBright Days Ahead (Les Beaux Jours) Marion Vernoux (France) NAPWords & Pictures Fred Schepisi (Us) Wpspecial Presentationsa Promise (Une Promesse) Patrice Leconte (Belgium-France) NAPThe Armstrong Lie Alex Gibney (Us) NAPBlind Detective Johnnie To (Hong Kong) NAPChild Of God James Franco (Us) NAPThe Face Of Love Arie Posin (Us) WPFading Gigolo John Turturro (Us) WPThe Finishers Nils Tavernier (Belgium-France) WPHow I Live Now Kevin Macdonald (UK) WPThe...

World premieres of Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now, Fred Schepisi’s Words And Pictures and John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo are among the TIFF line-up of galas and special presentations announced on Tuesday [13].

The Contemporary World Cinema strand includes first views of Jan Hrebejk’s Honeymoon, Donovan Marsh’s iNumber Number and Fernando Coimbra’s A Wolf At The Door.

The Toronto International Film Festival is scheduled to run from Sept 5-15.

Wp = World premiere

IP = International premiere

Np = North American premiere

Cp = Canadian premiere

Tp = Toronto premiere

GALASBlood Ties Guillaume Canet (France-us) NAPBright Days Ahead (Les Beaux Jours) Marion Vernoux (France) NAPWords & Pictures Fred Schepisi (Us) Wpspecial Presentationsa Promise (Une Promesse) Patrice Leconte (Belgium-France) NAPThe Armstrong Lie Alex Gibney (Us) NAPBlind Detective Johnnie To (Hong Kong) NAPChild Of God James Franco (Us) NAPThe Face Of Love Arie Posin (Us) WPFading Gigolo John Turturro (Us) WPThe Finishers Nils Tavernier (Belgium-France) WPHow I Live Now [link...

From sex tourism to care-home degradation, Haneke and co venture undaunted into areas that Hollywood fears to tread

If Hollywood's knights of raucous mise-en-scene – Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, Roland Emmerich, etc – are there to uphold the gleaming castle of entertainment, I like to think there's a shadowy league ranged against them, beyond the mountains of the Old World. No bodacious starlets for this cabal, no multimillion-dollar CGI sprees; no high-octane street racing, or talking mammoths, or cheap affirmative morality. Nope, for the Austrian League of Extraordinarily Pessimistic Gentlemen, it's only the good stuff: sex tourism, the disappointment of immigrants, care-home degradation, suburban paedophilia, irrational violence, industrial farming and, lest we forget, latent Nazism.

Who are its members? There's Ulrich Seidl, dissecting modern aspirations in his Paradise trilogy; Götz Spielmann, whose impassive framing of his 2008 thriller Revanche hinted there might be such a thing as an "Austrian" style; Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the...

Everyone's thoughts are turning towards the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (from May 15th to 26th, 2013) and predictions abound about which films might be chosen by Thierry Frémaux. Overview of the main contenders for a selection on the Croisette, with an opening that would look good with The Great Gatsby by Australian director Baz Lurhmann, for example.

On the European side, where exceptionally Lars Von Trier and Pedro Almodóvar will be absent, the most widely expected contenders are Only God Forgives by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, Twelve Years a Slave (an American production) by British director Steve McQueen, La grande belleza by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, and the French favourites: Un indien des plaines (Jimmy P.) by Arnaud Desplechin, Blue is the Warmest Colour by Abdellatif Kechiche, Bird People by Pascale Ferran, and possibly Venus in Fur by Roman Polanski if editing is speeded up. Amongst the outsiders, it is worth mentioning Nine Minutes Interval by Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, Michael Kohlhaas by Arnaud des Pallières (starring Mads Mikkelsen), Un château en Italie by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Jeune et jolie by François Ozon, Abus de faiblesse by Catherine Breillat and Bastards by Claire Denis.

Amongst the Old Continent’s other potential candidates for a trip to the Croisette are We Come As Friends by Austrian director Hubert Sauper, The Invisible Woman by British director Ralph Fiennes, A Field in England by Ben Wheatley, the German film Happy Birthday by French director Denis Dercourt, Nude Area by Urszula Antoniak, a Dutch director of Polish origin, the mysterious Dau by Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky, The Gambler by Hungarian director Szabolcs Hajdu, Oktober November by Austrian director Götz Spielmann, Histoire de la Meva Mort by Portuguese director Albert Serra, Open Windows by Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo and Goodbye to Language by Jean-Luc Godard.

The selection is not short of American possibilities this year, with notably The Nightingale by James Gray, Inside Llewyn Davies by the Coen brothers, The Bling Ring by Sofia Coppola, Nebraska by Alexander Payne, Her by Spike Jonze, Night Moves by Kelly Reichardt, and maybe Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch and The Butler by Lee Daniels. We can also dream about the out-of-competition screenings of The Wolf of Wall Street by Martin Scorsese, Blue Jasmin by Woody Allen and Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro. As for Canada, it will be placing its bets on Tom à la ferme by Xavier Dolan and An Enemy by Denis Villeneuve.

Asia could be in the running with, amongst others, Le Passé by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, The Congress by Israeli director Ari Folman, Snowpiercer by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, Diary of a Young Boyby Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang, Blind Detective by Chinese director Johnnie To and three Japanese movies: A Perfect Day for Plesiosaur by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Like Father, Like Sonby Hirokazu Kore-Eda and Dog Eat Dog by Shinji Aoyama

While Africa will set its hopes on Grisgris by Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun,surprisescould come from Latin America where only Mexican productions appear in the predictions so far, with Manto Acuifero by Michael Rowe, Chavez by Diego Luna and A los ojos by Vicky and Michel Franco.

Finally, it is worth mentioning on the French side (probably out of competition), possibilities like Once Upon a Forest by Luc Jacquet, Mood Indigo by Michel Gondry(even if its release in April seems incompatible for the moment with the selection process), L’extravagant voyage du jeune et prodigieux T.S Spivet by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Blood Ties by Guillaume Canet, Grace de Monaco by Olivier Dahan and Malavita by Luc Besson. Also aiming for selection are Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowki, Suzanne by Katell Quillevéré, Jacky in Women’s Kingdom by Riad Sattouf, Une autre vie by Emmanuel Mouret, Eastern Boys by Robin Campillo, Gare du Nord by Claire Simon,Tip Top by Serge Bozon, Tirez la langue mademoiselle by Axelle Ropert, L’inconnu du lac by Alain Guiraudie, Réalité by Quentin Dupieux and Dark Touch by Marina de Van. So many enticing titles for a hypothetical panorama, which is not exhaustive and that only Thierry Frémaux will clarify at the press conference on April 18th.

This article was written by Fabien Lemercier and also appeared in Cineuropa.org.

Oktober November

Director: Götz Spielmann

Writer(s): Barbara Albert, Martin Gschlacht, Jessica Hausner, Antonin Svoboda/Götz Spielmann

Producer(s): Antonin Svoboda, Martin Gschlacht, Bruno Wagner, Götz Spielmann

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Nora von Waldstätten, Ursula Strauss, Peter Simonischek, Sebastian Koch, Johannes Zeiler

Soaked in dread, heavy on the atmospherics and with a production value of the highest caliber, his seventh feature film, 2008′s Revanche was one hell of a manner to introduce filmmaker Götz Spielmann to a vast number of cinephiles. We’re hoping for more of the same with this one.

Gist: Two sisters, very different. Their father, whose life is ending. A guesthouse in the mountains. A family history.

Release Date: Revanche was featured at the Berlin Film Fest, and while this won’t be ready in time for Cannes, I’m thinking it’ll be submitted to Venice

prev next...

Still from Sonchidi

The 3rd edition of Naya Cinema Festival, to be held in Mumbai from November 22-25, will screen Amit Dutta’s Sonchidi and Nainsukh. Both films were selected for Venice Film Festival in 2011 and 2010 respectively.

Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus will also be screened at the festival.

Organised by Enlighten Film Society, the festival will be held at Russian Centre, Pedder Road, Mumbai.

The registration fee for the festival is Rs 599 that includes delegate pass for the entire festival, a festival booklet and access to online festival from 12th December, 2012 to 15th January, 2013. For registration, click here.

Festival programme:

22nd November, 2012

Pickpocket

Dir.: Robert Bresson

Time: 12 pm. (B&W / France / 1959 / 75 mins)

Trial of Joan of Arc

Dir.: Robert Bresson

Time: 1:30 pm (Colour / France / 1962 / 65 mins)

The Wages of Fear

Dir.: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Time: 3:15 pm (B&W / France / 1953 / 147 mins)

12

Dir.: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Time:...

"It doesn't take long at all for the personal and the political to merge seamlessly in 5 Broken Cameras, an immediately involving and moving portrait of the Palestinian troubles through the eyes of one of the film's co-directors, Emad Burnat," begins Chris Cabin in Slant. "A lifelong resident of the small village of Bil'in, Burnat quickly went from being a man of the soil to a man with a movie camera in 2005, just as his fourth son, Gibreel, was born in his small West Bank village and has continued to film the struggles of his village against the settlers — a word used to refer to nearly all Israeli private citizens who occupy disputed territory. Spanning from the birth of Gibreel to the end of 2010, 5 Broken Cameras is made up almost entirely of footage shot by Mr Burnat, which was then edited by Guy Davidi, an Israeli filmmaker and film professor who's...

We haven't made an entry into our Underappreciated Gems series in quite some time, and we've had a lot of requests for more coverage of Netflix Instant, so I thought we'd combine the two and come up with a new round of Underappreciated Gems currently available on Netflix Instant.

The criteria for an Underappreciated Gem remains as it always does: A movie that didn't make at least $10 million at the box office. I doubt many of these films, from the last three years, even crossed the $2 million mark. But that doesn't make them any less worthy.

Links go to the Netflix page.

8: The Mormon Proposition: 8: The Mormon Proposition is a stirring, tragically depressing documentary about the Mormon Church's massive efforts to support and pass California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative (also called the California Marriage Protection Act), which in 2008 redefined marriage in the state of California as being only between a man and a woman,...

I came across Time Out New York’s list of their top 50 foreign films of all time. Although a very good list, I felt, personally, there were some omissions. I decided to come up with my own top list. 50 is a huge number for me to tackle so I also decided to scale it down to 10. Seems to be a good round number. Most of these films are in the Criterion Collection but there are a few on my list that are not, but I do feel that these few should be.

I’m also going to follow Time Out New York’s guideline of no silent film (although I do love silent films) and no films from England, Australia or any other English speaking countries.

Also, my list is going to gravitate to more contemporary films rather than classics. That’s just the way I roll!

My Favorite Foreign...

This is the podcast dedicated to The Criterion Collection. Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher & James McCormick discuss Criterion News & Rumors and Criterion New Releases, they also analyze, discuss & highlight Cc #502, Götz Spielmann’s 2008 film, Revanche, along with “Variations On a Theme”.

Special Guest: Laremy Legel – The Editor In Chief of Film.com.

This Week’s Theme: Tragic Coincidences in Movies

What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.

Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed.

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Our next episode they will highlight and discuss Criterion #232 Yasujiro Ozu’s 1934 & 1959 films, A...

Disc 2 episodes are bonus/supplement episodes of The CriterionCast. Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher & James McCormick ramble on and on about movies and movie experiences. “On The Screen” is where they discuss anything and everything that has been on their screens in the week. So anything from TV & movies to music & web junk, everything “On The Screen” is up for grabs. This is what they recommend to you, their listeners.

Our Summer 2010 film review for this week is The A-Team:

Special Guest: Elisabeth Rappe – A writer from Cinematical.com, Chud.com and The Flickcast.

What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.

Thank You! for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed.

This is the podcast dedicated to The Criterion Collection. Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher & James McCormick discuss Criterion News & Rumors and Criterion New Releases, they also analyze, discuss & highlight Criterion #504, Steve McQueen’s 2008 film, Hunger, along with “Variations On a Theme”.

Special Guest: Elisabeth Rappe – A writer from Cinematical.com, Chud.com and The Flickcast.

This Week’s “Variation on a Theme”: Political Protest in Movies

What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.

Thank You! for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed.

They broadcast every episode Live on UStream every Friday @ 7pm Est/4pm Pst. Join in on the conversation @ CriterionCast.com/Live

Our next episode they will highlight and...

Austria Film Scene: Local The Diagonale Festival is over and that means the Austrian Film Prize for Best Feature Film was handed to Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's La Pivellina - the portrait has been on a successful run picking up several festival awards and special mentions (see trailer). Hana, dul, sed … by Brigitte Weich and Karin Macher won Best Documentary. The doc is about three female North Korean soccer players and their life after they missed the qualification for the Olympic Games. Andreas Lust and Franziska Weisz won Best Actor/Actress for The Robber. Kick Off by Hüseyin Tabak won the Audience Award and the youth Jury Award. The film is centered around three players of the Austrian National Team for the homeless soccer World Cup and their struggle to get back into society (German-language trailer) - the film was released last month. Pepperminta by Pipilotti Rist is...

Iron Man 2 (12A)

(Jon Favreau, 2010, Us) Robert Downey Jr, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow. 125 mins

Considering his CEO status, it's no surprise that Tony Stark's return feels more like an upgrade than a sequel. It's this season's must-have tech-form with a human interface, machine-tooled for enhanced multiplex performance, even if it has trouble finding much to say. Downey divides his time between battling his own ego and Rourke's ridiculous Russian baddie – among other myriad convoluted Marvel-universe subplots – but it's all about as exciting as the launch of a new MacBook.

Revanche (15)

(Götz Spielmann, 2008, Aus) Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko. 122 mins

An Austrian noir thriller, this takes the heist-gone-wrong set-up to intriguing new territory – the countryside – giving our sympathetic crook a new perspective, and bringing him perilously close to his cop nemesis.

Valhalla Rising (15)

(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009, Den/UK) Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson. 100 mins

This gory, hallucinatory Viking odyssey makes an indelible impression,...

Just released on DVD and Blu-ray this week, courtesy of the Criterion Collection, is Götz Spielmann's riveting neo-noir Revanche, which was Oscar-nominated last year for Best Foreign Language Film:

A gripping thriller and a tragic drama of nearly Greek proportions, Revanche is the stunning, Oscar-nominated international breakthrough of Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann. In a ragged section of Vienna, hardened ex-con Alex (the mesmerizing Johannes Krisch) works in a brothel, where he falls for Ukrainian hooker Tamara. Their desperate plans for escape unexpectedly intersect with the lives of a rural cop and his seemingly content wife. With meticulous, elegant direction, Spielmann creates a tense, existential, and surprising portrait of vengeance and redemption, and a journey into the darkest forest of human nature, in which violence and beauty exist side by side.

Sometime last May, I sat down with Spielmann to talk about "the first Buddhist thriller" (as he recalls an L.

Götz Spielmann's Revanche is a rather slow but engaging film that uses a revenge plot to examine themes of love, loss, and connectedness.

An ex-con named Alex (Johannes Krisch) is an ex-con who works in a Vienna brothel called Cinderella. His girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potepenko) is a Hungarian immigrant who works at Cinderella as a prostitute. Tamara, who is favored by the brothel owner for a position as a high-class call girl, is deeply in debt, and Alex's prospects are equally grim. Alex devises a misguided plan to help the couple see their way through the hard times. Through a series of mistakes, Alex and Tamara encounter a police officer (Andreas Lust) whose actions change their lives forever. 

Revanche can be categorized as a thriller but Götz Spielmann intentionally plays against any expectations associated with the genre. Revanche is structured like two separate films connected by a significant life event.

Salute Your Shorts is a weekly column that looks at short films, music videos, commercials or any other short form visual media that generally gets ignored.Despite Götz Spielmann’s reputation in Austria, Revanche was the first of his five features to reach the States. It has some unfortunate problems, but its release was a nice introduction to the neglected director nonetheless, and the feature was eventually nominated for an Academy Award. The film is largely set up as a string of binaries, with one of its chief concerns being how city life contrasts with rural life and the natural world. Revanche...

The always-fascinating Chlotrudis Awards have gone heavily international with their nominees this year. Thanks to FrozenFlame in the forums. Movie 35 Shots of Rum The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New...

Tulpan

Sergei Dvortsevoy created an impressive coming-of-age tale with this majestic treatment of life on the Kazakh steppe, following the return of Asa, a young sailor eager to make a place of his own in the traditional nomadic lifestyle. But to do so he must woo and marry the only available woman for miles - an elusive and almost entirely symbolic girl named Tulpan, whose unambiguous rejection gives his life its first meaningful hurdle. The bleak, hardscrabble life endured by the protagonists, implicitly vied with by modern civilization's hedonistic pull, gives this allegory impressive, romantic, and heartbreaking dimensions.

Revanche

Götz Spielmann's arthouse noir is a deft and entertaining treatise on life in the margins of late-capitalism, a pitch-dark European take on The Postman Always Rings Twice. The bleak, predictable ending to a heist meant to bring two people away from the venal desolation of life in the city gives Revanche its initial momentum,...

George Clooney, Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount) Denver Film Critics Society 2010 Nominations. Winners: Jan. 27, 2010. Best Film: A Serious Man, directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow Best Foreign Language Film: Thirst, directed by Chan-wook Park Sin Nombre, directed by Cary Jôji Fukunaga Summer Hours, directed by Olivier Assayas Revanche, directed by Götz Spielmann Best Documentary: The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos Anvil! The Story of Anvil, directed by Sacha Gervasi Best [...]...

The Denver Film Critics Society, of which I am a member, have announced their nominees for the 2009-2010 Dfcs Awards.

Up in the Air leads the pack with seven nods.

Winners will be announced on January 27, 2010.

Best Film:

A Serious Man, directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman

Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams

The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Best Actor:

George Clooney, Up in the Air

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Viggo Mortensen, The Road

Morgan Freeman, Invictus

Best Actress:

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Abbie Cornish, Bright Star

Best Director:

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Duncan Jones, Moon

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Best Supporting Actor:

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Christian McKay, Me and Orson Welles

Best Supporting Actress:

Mo’Nique,...

Those compiling their best of the year lists would do well to consult the roll-call of gong-winners handed out by an august band of international critics

Any perspicacious film festival-goer or festival-watcher will have noticed that one of the prizes awarded at most festivals, in addition to the Golden Palms, Golden Lions or Golden Leopards etc, is the Fipresci (Federation International de la Presse Cinematographic) – aka the international film critics' award. In principle, this should be the most prestigious and sought-after prize of all, because the juries are made up of professional film critics (usually five, each from a different country) who are paid to tell the public what is good or bad and why.

Unfortunately, the Fipresci prize does not carry with it any money but, in theory, it does help the film gain a distributor. However, on one occasion, I remember that a director, who had just won the Fipresci prize,...

Some exciting news from Criterion: Max Ophuls’ lavish biopic “Lola Montès” and Leo McCarey’s 30s tearjerker “Make Way for Tomorrow” will join the collection in February. Also on tap for the Criterion treatment are two recent films: Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” and Götz Spielmann’s “Revanche.” More from The Playlist. Out this week from Criterion is the 1969 skiing drama, “Downhill Racer,” starring Robert Redford. “If the movie often feels like a vaguely …...