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The Ugly Stepsister, Blichtfeldt’s debut feature — which premiered at Sundance and will screen in the Panorama section at the Berlinale — reframes the classic fairy tale through the Pov of Cinderella’s sibling and her horrifying quest to achieve the beauty she sees as required for love and acceptance.

Taking equal parts inspiration from the Brothers Grimm — whose version of Cinderella includes the stepsisters mutilating their feet to fit the famed slipper and fool the prince — and from the visceral gore of David Cronenberg, Blichtfeldt’s film is a further addition to a new wave of feminist body horror and would make a nice double bill with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. In place of the high-tech, Ozymepic-esque injections Demi Moore subjects herself to in Fargeat’s film, we have a low-tech parasite, in the form of a tapeworm egg which the stepsister Elvira (Lea Myren) swallows to make her thin.

To celebrate the release of Three Wishes for Cinderella on Blu-Ray available now, we are giving away a Blu-Ray to 2 lucky winners!

Václav Vorlíček’s 1973 reworking of the classic Cinderella story is one of the most beloved films in all Central European cinema. Delightful and unconventional, Three Wishes for Cinderella places the familiar fairy tale into a wintry setting with down-to-earth characters and a feisty and rebellious Cinderella. Far from being just a passive beauty, she is a spirited rider, a champion hunter and takes every opportunity to challenge – and actively pursue – her handsome Prince.

A perennial favourite on television throughout Europe (including as a dubbed BBC serial in the 1970s), Three Wishes for Cinderella continues to enchant with its magic and beauty.

Presented from a 4K restoration and now available for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.

Special features:

• Three Wishes for Cinderella presented from a 4K...

Norwegian singer Astrid S will play the title role in a modern-day remake of the 1973 Czech film. TV director and actress Cecilie Mosli (the TV series Thin Ice) is now shooting a new family film entitled Three Wishes for Cinderella. The project, a modern remake of the 1973 Czech feature of the same name directed by Václav Vorlíček, was penned by Kamilla Krogsveen and Karsten Fullu alongside writing duo Anna Bache-Wiig and Siv Rajendram Eliassen. The story follows Cinderella, who, armed with a great deal of courage, and empowered by her three magical hazelnuts, is able to break free from her cruel stepmother's tyranny and rescue the prince (Cengiz Al) from his gilded cage. Three Wishes for Cinderella is being produced by Frederick Pn Howard and Petter J Borgli for Oslo-based outfit Storm Films. The film...

Above: Mulan (2020)It may seem there’s no bone left to pick with Disney’s live action Mulan weeks after its release. That is, what could I possibly say that would be worthy of press after the movie had been under fire for, among other things, putting a special thanks to a local government operating concentration camps in the credits. That one is, admittedly, hard to beat. To justify the massive oversharing in a review of a Disney film for something as highbrow as Mubi's Notebook, you have to understand that my criticism for Mulan comes from a warm place deep inside my heart. So, I couldn’t just let it be. I had to join in on the group diss track, so that the circle of dissatisfaction can be complete in scale: world-view clashes next to the good ol’ "doesn’t live up to the original,” all the way to my culturally conditioned,...

Vogt’s ‘The Innoncents’ is expected to shoot this year.

Eskil Vogt’s new film The Innocents (De Uskyldige) is one of the projects backed by the Norwegian Film Institute’s latest funding round yesterday.

Vogt writes and directs the story about four children (ages 6 to 12), away from their parents’ attention, whose innocent play turns into something else. The filmmaking team wrote, “Magic and creepy things start happening. The Innocents is a film for adults and a shocking journey in to the secret world of the children.”

Vogt made his directing debut with Sundance award-winner Blind and he has also...

Last week we learned, via the National Film Archive (Czech Republic) that Janus Films (and the Criterion Collection) had just signed a new deal with plans to bring 30 classic Czech films to the Us.

From the announcement:

The National Film Archive has concluded an important contract with distribution company Janus Films which opens the road to expending knowledge of Czech classic films in all of North America.

Among the more than 30 Czech classic films available to American audiences for screening in cinemas and on DVD in the Us and Canada are titles such as The Cremator, Marketa Lazarová, All My Good Countrymen, Three Nuts for Cinderella. It’s made possible thanks to a new contract signed by National Film Archive director Michal Bregant and distribution company Janus Films.

Michal Bregant offered a comment: “We have signed the contract symbolically this week in Bologna at the festival Il cinema ritrovato, which...

Kenji Mizoguchi, Jirí Brdecka tributes planned for 52nd edition.

The 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 30 - July 8) will present a Crystal Globe for outstanding contribution to world cinema to British director Ken Loach.

The award will be shared with his long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty. The pair have collaborated on twelve feature films and two shorts, including The Wind That Shakes The Barley and more recently the Palme d’Or and Bafta-winning I, Daniel Blake.

Loach has a long and fruitful relationship with the Karlovy Vary festival. In 1968, his feature debut Poor Cow won a special jury prize and best actress for its star Carol White. A year later, his second film Kes won the festival’s Crystal Globe, and he has been a guest at the festival on numerous occasions since.

Poor Cow

Karlovy Vary will also celebrate the work of composer James Newton Howard, whose credits include Pretty Woman, The Sixth Sense, [link...