News

Jennifer Lawrence's new movie with Robert Pattinson, Die, My Love, has been revealed in three first-look images. Directed by Lynne Ramsay, who co-wrote the script with Enda Walsh based on the 2017 novel by Ariana Harwicz, the upcoming film follows the psychological unraveling of a woman living in rural America who becomes overwhelmed by the demands of marriage and motherhood. The movie stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in lead roles alongside Lakeith Stanfield, Oscar winner Sissy Spacek, and three-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte.

Now, three first-look images from Die, My Love featuring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson have been revealed via The Film Stage. The first image shows a close-up of Lawrence's character drinking from a glass, followed by a second of her at a party with confetti falling around her. The third image shows Lawrence and Pattinson's characters, who are husband and wife, dancing in their farmhouse on the Montana countryside.

Jennifer Lawrence returns to her darker roots for “Die, My Love,” Lynne Ramsay’s first film in seven years. Check out a first-look image above.

The thriller is based on Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, which centers on a woman (Lawrence) ravaged at the crossroads between love and madness.

Robert Pattinson plays Lawrence’s onscreen husband, with Lakeith Stanfield cast as her lover. Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte also co-star.

Ramsay returns to directing for her first feature since 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here.” Ramsay previously teased “Die, My Love” during the 2023 Sarajevo Film Festival, emphasizing the movie’s divergences from the novel. In contrast, the book was about a woman in a secluded French village who grapples with extreme mental health problems after giving birth. Ramsay has taken liberties with source material before, with “You Were Never Really Here” adapted from a Jonathan Ames novella and “We Need to Talk About Kevin...

Andras Hamori, the Hungarian film and television producer whose credits included Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, István Szabó’s Sunshine and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, has died. He was 71.

Hamori died Sept. 2 in Budapest after a long illness that prevented him from working in recent years, his friend Mia Taylor announced.

Hamori, who worked out of Toronto early in his career and was a partner in Alliance Entertainment, also guided the cult horror classic The Gate (1987), starring Stephen Dorff in his first major role; Stephen Frears’ Chéri (2009), starring Michelle Pfeiffer; and the 2014 History Channel miniseries Houdini, starring Adrien Brody.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which earned Egoyan Oscar nominations for best director and adapted screenplay, revolved around a school bus accident in a Canadian town that killed 14 children.

Sunshine (1999) told the story of several generations of a Jewish family set against the backdrop of Hungarian history. It starred Ralph Fiennes, was...

One Shot invites close readings of the basic unit of film grammar.Morvern Callar.Flowers are for life and for death; in Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar (2002), the titular protagonist roams a mausoleum in her new floral party dress, flanked on either side by memorial bouquets. Behind her trail two bewildered literati, who have just offered her £100,000 for the novel they think she wrote. The manuscript’s real author, Morvern’s boyfriend, has been in the ground for a time. After he killed himself, Morvern dismembered and buried his body, emptied his bank account, and went on holiday to Spain. When the publishers ask Morvern what her next project might be, she answers, “I work in a supermarket.”Across her filmography, Ramsay’s main characters are common people who find themselves disoriented and blinking through encounters with death and darkness. Their actual circumstances are ordinary, sordid, tragic, predictable: a child...

Throughout the 2010s, Brian Duffield more than did his part to keep the art of the original genre movie alive and thriving. Between his screenplays for the babysitter slasher-comedy "The Babysitter," the post-apocalyptic monster adventure "Love and Monsters," and the underwater survival thriller "Underwater", Duffield emerged as one of the hottest talents in Hollywood before fully coming into his own as the writer-director behind the well-received high school horror rom-com "Spontaneous" and essentially dialogue-free alien invasion thriller "No One Will Save You" in the 2020s. But before any of that happened, the first produced film based on one of Duffield's unique scrips became something of a disaster.

The movie in question, "Jane Got a Gun," has the makings of an inventive spin on a familiar tune, much like Duffield's other work. Directed by Gavin O'Connor, the Western casts Natalie Portman as the eponymous firearm-wielding cowlady, a woman whose husband is...

We Need To Talk About Kevin director Lynne Ramsay is finally making her latest film, with filming now underway in Calgary, Canada.

Update 20th August 2024: Filming has now begun on Die, My Love, the fifth film from British director Lynne Ramsay. Kftv reports that production got underway in Calgary, Canada on the 19th August and will run until the 8th October. Starring Jennifer Lawrence (who also produces with Martin Scorsese), it’s said to be about “a woman driven tot he brink of insanity by marriage and motherhood.” Robert Pattinson and Lakeith Stansfield also have major roles.

There’s no word on a release date yet, but 2025 seems likely; perhaps Ramsay will even have the film ready for the Canne Film Festival next May. We’ll bring you more as we get it.

Our original story from the 18th June follows…

The only bad thing about Lynne Ramsay’s...

Lynne Ramsay’s next film, Die, My Love, is said to be a Sylvia Plath-style tale of grief that will go before cameras later this year.

Lynne Ramsay’s career as a director spans a quarter of a century, yet she only has four films to her name. Still, when those four films are Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin and 2017’s You Were Never Really Here, you have the kind of filmography that would make many a filmmaker envious.

Despite not being especially prolific, Ramsay is said to have several projects bubbling away at the minute. We’ve heard in the past that she’s planning to work with Joaquin Phoenix again (following their memorable collaboration in You Were Never Really Here) in Polaris, although its been a couple of years this that story first appeared. Then there’s Stone Mattress, a project featuring Julianne Moore,...

Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay and former Icelandic Film Center (IFC) chief Laufey Guðjónsdóttir received honors from the 10th anniversary edition of Reykjavik’s Stockfish Film & Industry Festival. The awards, presented during a reception on April 11th, celebrate outstanding contributions to the film industry both internationally and domestically.

Known for its intimate atmosphere and ease of networking, the non-profit Stockfish is overseen by the six professional associations of filmmakers in Iceland, members of which comprise the festival board. The festival offers screenings of domestic and international features along with the popular Shortfish, a juried competition for Icelandic shorts in a variety of categories. The festival honors are part of an industry program that includes talks and panels as well as Icelandic works-in-progress.

Citing honoree Ramsay’s unique artistry, Stockfish’s artistic director Hrönn Kristinsdottír praised the director-screenwriter for challenging conventions and pushing boundaries in an industry dominated by male voices. Ramsay,...

Acclaimed British actor, writer and director Samantha Morton who was awarded a Fellowship at the Ee BAFTA Awards on Sunday has called for more investment in British cinema.

The award is the highest recognition given by BAFTA to an individual for their exceptional contribution to the film, games or television industry.

Addressing a press conference after accepting her award, Morton said: “We need more investment in British cinema. I’ve been saying this for years because we can’t just be a service industry for the wonderful Americans. They are amazing and thank God they come here and make movies and put us in as well, thank you. Like in France, we need our own quotas and we need to be making those investments.” Inward investment in the U.K. film and high-end TV industry was $4.22 billion in 2023, with the bulk of it coming from the U.S.

The U.K....

British actor, writer, and director Samantha Morton will be awarded the BAFTA Fellowship at next week’s Ee BAFTA Film Awards.

Born in Nottingham in 1977, Morton garnered international attention in 1997 with her performance in Carine Adler’s Under the Skin, earning her a BIFA nomination and the Boston Film Critics Award for Best Actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award first for Best Supporting Actress for Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and later for Best Actress for Jim Sheridan’s In America (2003).

Other notable film credits include work with directors such as Lynne Ramsay on Morvern Callar (2002), for which she won Best Performance, Toronto Film Critics Award and a BIFA for Best Actress; Steven Spielberg on Minority Report (2002); Michael Winterbottom on Code 46 (2003); Shekhar Kapur on The Golden Age (2007); Harmony Korine on Mister Lonely (2007); Anton Corbijn on Control, (2007), earning her a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Film Award nomination; Charlie Kaufman Synecdoche,...

Acclaimed British actor, writer and director Samantha Morton will be awarded a Fellowship at the upcoming Ee BAFTA Film Awards.

The award is the highest recognition given by BAFTA to an individual for their exceptional contribution to the film, games or television industry.

After earning plaudits in theater and television, Morton’s breakthrough film role was Carine Adler’s “Under the Skin (1997) that earned her a BIFA nomination and the Boston Film Critics Award for best actress. She has been Oscar nominated twice – for best supporting actress for Woody Allen’s “Sweet and Lowdown” (1999), and for best actress for Jim Sheridan’s “In America” (2003).

For her portrayal of child-murderer Myra Hindley in “Longford” (2006) Morton scored best actress nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and BAFTA Television Award, and won a Golden Globe. In 2009, she made her directorial debut with television film “The Unloved,” a semi-autobiographical film based in the British children’s care system,...

Samantha Morton, the British actor (She Said, The Whale, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Walking Dead), writer (I Am…Kirsty) and director (The Unloved), will receive the BAFTA Fellowship, the British Academy’s highest honor.

She will be given the honor at the BAFTA Film Awards ceremony, hosted by David Tennant (Doctor Who, Inside Man), in London on Feb. 18.

“As a proud BAFTA member I am honored, profoundly humbled and grateful to BAFTA for giving me this award,” Morton said.

Anna Higgs, chair of BAFTA’s film committee, lauded her as “a mesmerizing storyteller with incredible range,” adding: “She has made an extraordinary impact on the British film industry – consistently shining a light on complex characters and championing underrepresented stories. On-and-off screen, she always works to break down societal barriers and change the make-up of the screen industries for the better – often against great odds.” She concluded:...

Actor, writer and director Samantha Morton will receive the Bafta Fellowship at next week’s Bafta Film Awards, on Sunday, February 18.

The British performer and filmmaker will receive the award during the ceremony as part of a special commemoration of her work to date.

Morton, who hails from Nottingham, broke through with her role in Carine Adler’s 1997 Under The Skin, for which she received a Bifa nomination.

Her subsequent credits include Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, for which she won the Bifa for best actress; Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report; Anton Corbijn’s Control, for which she was nominated...

The last cork has been popped and the final flute of Kirkland Signatures sparkling wine drained down to the last drop. Old Man 2023 has gathered his sash about his withered frame and slunk into the night, clearing the way for cherubic New Year 2024–giggly, chubby and brimming with promise.

Or something. In reality, years don’t flip on and off like a light switch. They smear into each other like paint, until everything is the same weird shade of brownish-purple. But still: we all strive to make each new chapter in the Gregorian filing system a fresh start–a chance to break bad habits and begin good ones.

The traditional way of kickstarting these self-improvement reboots is through the maddeningly self-deceptive ritual of setting New Year’s Resolutions–80% of which are inevitably abandoned by February 1, according to most studies. But hey! A sustainable 20% is still pretty good. And for cineastes,...

‘Tis the season to be streaming. And if you’re going to be streaming, consider streaming some independent films.

With the holidays approaching, streamers are predictably focusing their energy on stocking their libraries with Christmas and family films. As a result, there’s less great non-seasonal indies coming to Netflix, Hulu, Max, and the other major platforms this month than usual. That’s not to say there aren’t a few classics from yesteryear coming our way; Netflix is complimenting its new original “May December” with “Black Swan,” another film that sees Natalie Portman at her scariest. Paramount+ offers up two late ’90s and early ’00s gems with Sofia Coppola’s debut “The Virgin Suicides” and scrappy football charmer “Bend It Like Beckham.” On Prime Video, you can enjoy one of the 2010s best comedies, Andrew Bujalski’s “Support the Girls.” And on Max, you can check out “The Souvenir,...

The holidays are upon us, so whether you looking for film-related gifts or simply want to pick up some of the finest the year had to offer in the category for yourself, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and more home-video picks, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

Giveaways

In celebration of our holiday gift guide, we’ll be doing a number of giveaways! First up, we’re giving away My First Movie Vol. 2, a three-part ‘lil cinephile series by Cory Everett and illustrator Julie Olivi, featuring My First Spaghetti Western, My First Yakuza Movie, and My First Hollywood Musical.

Enter on Instagram (for My First Yakuza Movie), Twitter (for My First Hollywood Musical), and/or Facebook (for My First Spaghetti Western) by Sunday, November 26 at 11:59pm Et. Those that enter on all three platforms...

The Criterion Channel is closing the year out with a bang––they’ve announced their December lineup. Among the highlights are retrospectives on Yasujiro Ozu (featuring nearly 40 films!), Ousmane Sembène, Alfred Hitchcock (along with Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut), and Parker Posey. Well-timed for the season is a holiday noir series that includes They Live By Night, Blast of Silence, Lady in the Lake, and more.

Other highlights are the recent restoration of Abel Gance’s La roue, an MGM Musicals series with introduction by Michael Koresky, Helena Wittmann’s riveting second feature Human Flowers of Flesh, the recent Sundance highlight The Mountains Are a Dream That Call To Me, the new restoration of The Cassandra Cat, Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, and more.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam, 1988

An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli,...

You’ll recall in 2013, one of the most anticipated movies of what would have been the next year suddenly fell apart, much to the chagrin of cinephiles everywhere. The movie was the Western “Jane Got A Gun” that was supposed to be directed by the great Lynne Ramsay, and it was supposed to star Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender, Joel Edgerton, and Jude Law.

Continue reading ‘Jane Got A Gun’: Brian Duffield Recalls The “Traumatic & Terrible” Experience Of Lynne Ramsay Leaving His Western at The Playlist.

Exclusive: The Telluride Film Festival, held in an old mining town high up in a picturesque alpine valley in the Rockies, marks its 50th anniversary this week, and Oscar-winning Moonlight filmmaker Barry Jenkins undoubtedly is one of its favorite sons.

He’ll be making the trek to the mountains as he did for the first time in 2002 as a student from Florida State film school. The festival has a student symposium where novice filmmakers can meet and engage with professionals over the Labor Day weekend.

“There is no red carpet, there are no frills,” the director told me. “If you see a filmmaker in line for a cup of coffee, speak to them. They actually want to be engaged. That’s why filmmakers come over and over again, year after year.”

Jenkins obviously wasn’t around Telluride in the ’70s, but he acknowledges that he has heard that “socioeconomically, it...

Director’s 2017 feature ‘You Were Never Really Here’ to have an open-air screening at the festival.

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is to receive the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival (August 11-18).

The award is given “in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film” and Ramsay will receive the award on August 16, ahead of an open-air screening of her 2017 feature You Were Never Really Here, starring Joaquin Phoenix.

You Were Never Really Here premiered at Cannes, where Ramsay won the award for best screenplay and Phoenix picked up best actor prize.

The filmmaker won the...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSMay December.The first flurries of fall festival news have arrived. The New York Film Festival opens on September 29 with the North American premiere of Todd Haynes's May December—read Lawrence Garcia's take on the "immediately invigorating" film here, toward the conclusion of his Cannes dispatch. The San Sebastián Film Festival (September 22 through 30) has announced its first group of competition titles: among them, Cristi Puiu’s Mmxx, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Martín Rejtman’s La prática, and Robin Campillo’s Red Island. Finally, the Venice Film Festival will open on August 30 with the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers.Lucile Hadžihalilović has announced her follow-up to Earwig (2021), the 1970s-set La Tour de Glace. Based on a brief plot synopsis,...

“Why’s the world so tough? It’s like walking through meat in high heels.” This line comes from Alan Clarke’s 1987 TV movie Road, an adaptation of Jim Cartwright’s stage play, and it goes some way towards explaining the visceral and sensory experience that is Molly Manning Walker’s quite exceptional debut How to Have Sex.

In British cinema, working-class stories lost a major advocate when Clarke died soon after, in 1990, but Walker recovers some of that lost ground with her Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard entry, a subtle but powerful deconstruction of teenage dreams and desires that explores class and culture in a similarly human way.

Walker’s sterling work as a Dp — notably in the upcoming Sundance London opener Scrapper — proved she certainly has an eye, but her feature debut proves she also has a very distinct and confident voice. For a vague comparison, you...

Scottish filmmaker “hoping” to make Margaret Atwood adaptation ‘Stone Mattress’ this year.

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is hoping to shoot Margaret Atwood adaptation Stone Mattress later this year, as one of several film projects on which she has provided updates.

Speaking to Screen in Doha, where she is attending the Qumra meeting as a master, Ramsay said that she is “hoping this year” for the film’s shoot dates.

“It’s such a challenge, that film because it’s a boat in the Arctic – it [needs] all the elements aligning,” said Ramsay of the film, which is an adaptation of a...

Playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton, producer David Parfitt, Dune costume designer Jacqueline West and directors Lynne Ramsay and Michael Winterbottom are to set attend the Qatari Doha Film Institute’s ninth talent incubator event Qumra in March.

The meeting, which returns as an in-person event for the first time in four years from March 10-15 after a Covid-19 pandemic hiatus, focuses on nurturing first and second-time filmmakers.

They attend with their projects that have received funding from the Doha Film Institute (Dfi), a major backer of indie cinema in the Middle East and North Africa.

Hampton, Parfitt, West, Ramsay and Winterbottom are participating in the role of the event’s so-called Qumra Masters.

They will give a masterclass and mentor some of the filmmakers in attendance. The full list of attendees and projects will be announced next week.

Oscar-winner Hampton’s participation follows in the wake of The Father, for...

After last month kicked off with Sight and Sound unveiling of their once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll, detailing the 100 films that made the cut that were led by Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, they’ve now unveiled the full critics’ top 250. While the discourse up until now has featured many wondering why certain directors were totally absent and why other films that previously made the top 100 were left out, more clarity has arrived with this update.

Check out some highlights we clocked below, the full list here, and return on March 2 when all ballots and comments will be unveiled.

The films closest to making the top 100 were Rio Bravo, The House Is Black, and Vagabond, which tied for #103. Four directors absent in the top 100––Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Jacques Demy––have two films each in the top 250: The Tree of Life...

New Release Wall

“House of Gucci” (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) The legendary and legendarily vicious Gucci fashion empire gets the old-fashioned big movie treatment with Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, and Lady Gaga. Is it kind of ridiculous? Yes, but it’s also the reboot of “Dynasty” you never knew you wanted, one that’s best watched with a living room full of your rowdiest and most opinionated friends. Everyone in the movie is doing a variation on Italian-accented English, the settings are opulent, and Gaga is giving look after look after hat after hat and you will respect the wild, criminal duh-raaamaaa of it all.

Also Available:

“American Underdog” (Lionsgate) Zachary Levi stars as NFL champ Kurt Warner, who overcame multiple challenges and setbacks on the road to football glory.

“Apex” (Rlje Films) Bruce Willis must kill or be killed in order to escape prison.

“Clifford the Big Red Dog...

From Pig starring Nicolas Cage, Writer/Director Michael Sarnoski and Writer/Producer Vanessa Block join Josh and Joe to discuss the movies that inspired them during the creation of their film.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Nobody (2021)

Infested (2002)

The Big Chill (1983)

A History of Violence (2005)

Pig (2021)

Mandy (2018)

John Wick (2014)

The Testimony (2015)

No Country For Old Men (2007) [Both] – John Badham’s trailer commentary

The Maltese Falcon (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Blood Simple (1984) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzaliio’s review

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Moonstruck (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer commentary

Joe (2013)

Witness For The Prosecution (1957) [Vanessa Block] – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Easter Parade (1948)

Titanic (1997)

Never Been Kissed (1999)

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Crow (1994)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Midnight Cowboy (1969) [Michael Sarnoski] – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion...

Lynne Ramsay has signed on to direct Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for Village Roadshow Pictures. The project marks Ramsay's first feature since she put out You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Ramsay will direct the adaptation of King's 1999 cult classic from a script she co-wrote with Christy Hall, who is probably best-known as the co-creator of Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This. Production on The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is expected to begin at some point next year.

From the creative mind of Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon focuses on nine-year-old Trisha McFarland as she strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Trisha ends up getting lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, and has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon,...

Lynne Ramsay, whose hallucinatory films often have a genre edge, is making her first official foray into horror with an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1999 cult novel “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.” Ramsay will direct the film from a script she co-wrote with Christy Hall, co-creator of the Netflix series “I Am Not Okay With This.” Production is set to commence sometime next year, with Village Roadshow Pictures backing the project. “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” carries an impressive horror pedigree, as the producers include Christine Romero, the former wife of the late George A. Romero, and “It” producer Roy Lee of Vertigo Films.

For those who haven’t read King’s chilling novel, here’s the official synopsis from the horror author’s website: “Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail.

In Fyzal Boulifa’s fiercely impressive feature debut, set on an Essex housing estate, two childhood friends try to navigate adult lives that turn toxic

Fyzal Boulifa is a young British director of Moroccan heritage who was Bafta-nominated for his short film The Curse and now makes his fiercely impressive feature debut with Lynn + Lucy, a gruelling social-realist tragedy with a batsqueak of horror, set on a tough Essex estate that Boulifa says is not so very different from where he was brought up in Leicester.

It’s a film about class, community, self-esteem and female friendship and how desperate unhappiness can be incubated in secret, like bacilli in an unseen petri dish. Lynn + Lucy is Loachian in its way (Ken Loach’s company Sixteen Films is a co-producer) and is also indebted to a later generation of film-makers; it feels like Clio Barnard’s The Arbor, her verbatim...

As we march towards the Smackdown, we're also checking in with great supporting performances that weren't nominated. Here's Nick Taylor...

We've already discussed how Viola Davis had a spectacular 2002. But truth be told, it’s incredible how many actresses turned out multiple great performances in that film year: Samantha Morton headlined one of the best films of the past 20 years with intoxicating subtlety in Morvern Callar while delivering the most visceral, unsettling element of Minority Report. Maggie Gyllenhaal announced herself with a bang in Secretary and folded beautifully into the ensemble of Adaptation. Multiple cast members of The Hours gave equally memorable characterizations in other films - Meryl in Adaptation, Julianne in Far From Heaven, Miranda in Spider, Toni in About a Boy, and Claire in Igby Goes Down. (Side note: how wild is it that Nicole Kidman is the one who only made one movie that year?).

I’d...

While Lynne Ramsay’s next project looks to be an adaptation of a short story by “Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, the Scottish filmmaker is mostly keeping mum about the new film, her first since 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here.” She’s also working on an “environmental horror” movie with elements of a period piece, per an interview with The Hindu published this month.

“I think there’s elements of ancient horror in it with an eye for the environment, but I was being a little bit flippant,” she said about the upcoming project. “You know when people ask sometimes what are you doing, and you say just something to them. But yes, it is an original and a period piece, which is very interesting, and I’m also doing an adaptation of a short story by Margaret Atwood. I can’t really say much about that.”

More...

Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy spent eight years working on the script for their feature film debut, Amazon’s “Blow the Man Down,” about a pair of sisters who go deep into the underbelly of their New England hometown to cover up a crime. But the filmmakers’ relationship dates back further than that — to the days when they were shooting shorts and making music videos on Coney Island. They moved to Los Angeles at the same time and worked on sketch comedy videos. “We met behind the camera,” Krudy says. Cole adds, “It was so rare to meet another girl doing camera stuff.”

Not only do they have a love for cinematography, but both also come from Irish-Catholic families and have sisters. And they share a love of seaside towns. “I’m from Beverly, Massachusetts, and Krudy’s mother is from Maine,” Cole says.

Those commonalities helped early in the writing process.

Around halfway through “Saint Maud,” writer-director Rose Glass constructs a cinematic wince moment for the ages, involving nails, bare feet and a young woman with a Christ complex far too big for her own snappable body. “Never waste your pain,” she says, and this short, sharp needle-jab of a horror parable from bleakest Britain takes the same advice. Glass is sparing with her shocks, but knows how to make them count, like sudden voltage surges in the fritzed, volatile machinery of her narrative, each one leaving the protagonist a little more anxiously damaged than before. A meek, devoutly Christian palliative nurse, with an open wound of a past and what she believes is a higher calling for the future, Maud is like Carrie White and her mother Margaret rolled into one unholy holy terror; as played with brilliant, blood-freezing intensity by Morfydd Clark, she’s a genre anti-heroine to cherish,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Anthology Film Archives

The best film playing in New York this weekend is (probably) Jean-Luc Godard’s long-underseen Grandeur and Decadence: The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company.

“Trans Film” continues.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

All 10 collaborations between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are playing now through Sunday–all on 35mm or 16mm.

New additions include a ‘Films That Made Me’ strand featuring Jennifer Fox, Debra Granik and Desiree Akhavan.

Sundance London (May 31-June 3) has topped up its programme ahead of its sixth edition, which will be held at Picturehouse Central in London.

The new additions include the UK premiere of First Reformed, Paul Schrader’s thriller about a pastor experiencing a crisis of faith, starring Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise).

Unlike most Sundance London titles, it did not screen in Utah this January, instead premiering at Venice Film Festival in August 2017. Hawke will be present for an extended introduction before the film.

Also...

During a rare unplugged moment from the hectic weeks of prepping “You Were Never Really Here,” Lynne Ramsay sat in the backyard of the Brooklyn apartment where she stayed.

“It was pitch black and I could hear all these explosions,” said Ramsay. “And I’m like, ‘What the hell is that?’ I thought I was going crazy, but it was actually the Fourth of July and I couldn’t see the fireworks.”

Ramsay recorded the sound of the fireworks and played it for Joaquin Phoenix, who was getting ready to play Joe, a Ptsd combat veteran-turned-hitman in “You Were Never Really Here.” As she played the recording, Ramsay told him, “this is what goes on in your head every day.'”

The Scottish director had never met Phoenix before the weeks of furiously prepping her first American film – needing to take advantage of a small summer opening in Phoenix’s packed schedule,...

Lynne Ramsay's last two films (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin) have focused on individuals (in these cases, women,) who must contend with being the odd-person-out, someone with a secret they fear so dark and disturbing that it leaves them at odds with and isolated from society. Her latest, You Were Never Really Here, features a man, but one no less isolated, misunderstood, or damaged. With now a second film set in the Us and focusing greatly on the violence therein, Ramsay once again proves her deft hand at crafting stories that are at once intimate and deeply disturbing. Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a quiet man, somewhat intimidating in his physical stature, but a man who moves through a crowd with relative invisibility....

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

“…now, you can run, you can hide, or you can start to live like human beings again. This is our Waterloo, baby! You want your city back? You gotta take it.”—Fred Williamson, Vigilante Lynne Ramsay’s methods have become more concentrated, more specialized. When she began, her films found her gesturing at the edge of conventional psychology through lightly surreal abstraction. A rat tied to a balloon, a nocturnal supermarket bursting with song, her typical bricolage of light and found objects where every source feeds into a unified color scheme: all these elements say what her paralyzed or stunted protagonists could not. The world ironically reflected their darkness, their optimism, or their depression. Since 2002’s Morvern Callar she began a sort of narrowing of her emotional concern. Her characters wear masks of rage, of depression, of guilt, and fear. Music, color, light, objects and even people seem to reflect their inner turmoil.

Lynne Ramsay's last two films (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin) have focused on individuals (in these cases, women,) who must contend with being the odd-person-out, someone with a secret they fear so dark and disturbing that it leaves them at odds with and isolated from society. Her latest, You Were Never Really Here, features a man, but one no less isolated, misunderstood, or damaged. With now a second film set in the Us and focusing greatly on the violence therein, Ramsay once again proves her deft hand at crafting stories that are at once intimate and deeply disturbing. Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a quiet man, somewhat intimidating in his physical stature, but a man who moves through a crowd with relative invisibility....

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

Chris here. Can you believe the wait for the next Lynne Ramsay film is almost over? We've only had to wait a mere six years this time after the the nine year gap between Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin, so maybe we shouldn't complain. But this film is a promising return: Ramsay worked on You Were Never Really Here until the last minute before its Cannes debut, landing both a Best Actor trophy for Joaquin Pheonix and a tie for Best Screenplay (shared with The Killing of a Sacred Deer). And don't expect any dampened intensity from the auteur - Pheonix stars as a vigilante hitman tasked to rescue a young girl from a human trafficking circle.

The film is absent from the fall festival circuit and Amazon has yet to announce a release date, which likely spells out a slightly further wait and spring stateside release.

Returning to the A.V. Club office after almost two weeks in the trenches of Cannes, film editor A.A. Dowd sits down with staff writer Ignatiy Vishnevetsky to talk about the best (and, as luck would have it, last) film he saw at the world’s most important film festival: You Were Never Really Here, a nightmarish noir thriller directed by Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar, We Need To Talk About Kevin) that casts a bulked-up Joaquin Phoenix in the unlikely role of a brutal hired gun.

Watch the full episode of Film Club below:...

By Matt Hoffman

Director/writer Lynne Ramsay takes home Best Screenplay while Phoenix wins Best Actor for their stunning work. In her few feature films, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay has taken various approaches to explore grieving. Her 2002 film Morvern Callar examined a woman’s life dramatically altered by the suicide of her boyfriend. Her 2011 follow-up, We Need to […]

The article ‘You Were Never Really Here’ Review: Joaquin Phoenix Earns a Best Actor Prize appeared first on Film School Rejects.

There was a nine-year gap between the appearance of Lynne Ramsay’s second feature, Morvern Callar (2002), and her third, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). Fans of arguably Scotland’s most distinctive living director have only had to wait a mere six years for her latest, You Were Never Really Here. Surely that’s a hopeful sign she’s speeding up, especially given the well-publicized conflagration over her abandoning Jane Got a Gun a couple of years back just before shooting started because of budget issues.

Was it worth the wait for You Were Never Really Here? That’s not a question that...

Joaquin Phoenix stumbles through every scene in Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here” as if he overslept, dashed out of bed, and accidentally rushed into the abandoned set of a film noir, then forgot what he was supposed to do. The results are thrilling and frustrating, often within the constraints of a single scene. It’s an enticing challenge for the writer-director to develop a stylish mood piece out this flimsy material, adapted from a Jonathan Ames novella as a series of textured moments. The movie is an elegant homage to a mold of scrappy detective stories that often collapses into a concise pileup of stylish possibilities.

That’s nothing new for the British director, whose 2002 feature “Morvern Callar” showed a penchant for grim genre exercises that treasured mood over plot and mysteries over solutions; her 2011 thriller “We Need to Talk About Kevin” suggested the prospects for expanding...

Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present, and future.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival comes with a statistic that’s inspiring and disheartening in equal measure: The competition lineup includes more work from female filmmakers than almost any other year of the aughts… but that still shakes out to under 16% of the total competition slate. This year’s 19-film competition lineup includes just three female filmmakers, all of whom have screened their work at the festival before, putting Palme d’Or contenders at a 15.8% female-directed rate.

Sofia Coppola will compete with her Civil War-era drama “The Beguiled;” previously, the festival premiered her “Marie Antoinette” (2006, in competition) and “The Bling Ring” (2013, Un Certain Regard). She’ll be joined by frequent Cannes attendee Naomi Kawase, bowing her “Radiance,” her seventh film to debut at the festival (she won the Camera d’Or in 1997).

Read More: Female...

Life is better with a new Lynne Ramsay film to look forward to. For the second time in her short career, the talented filmmaker is resurfacing after a prolonged gap between projects. Back in 2011, Ramsay released “We Need To Talk About Kevin” to wide acclaim, marking her first feature film since 2002’s “Morvern Callar.” And now, six years after ‘Kevin,’ we’re finally being treated to our first look of Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here.”

Read More: Watch: 8-Minute Video Essay Explores The Poetry Of Lynne Ramsay’s Films

This first batch of photos shows us Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joe, a war veteran who takes it upon himself to clean up the sex trade in his city.

Continue reading First Look: Joaquin Phoenix In Lynne Ramsay’s ‘You Were Never Really Here’ at The Playlist.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Kieslowski retrospective has its final weekend.

Some of documentary cinema’s recent bright stars are given dedication in “Pushing the Envelope: A Decade of Documentary at the Cinema Eye Honors.”

Margaret and You Can Count on Me screen this Friday and Sunday, respectively.

The Sword of Doom screens this Saturday,...

This week, FilmBuff releases writer/director Nadia Litz’s atmospheric mystery thriller, The People Garden, in Los Angeles theaters and on VOD. The story follows a young woman named Sweetpea (Dree Hemingway) into the depths of a Japanese forest as she looks for her missing rock star boyfriend, who vanished from the set of a music video that he put together at the last minute.

Daily Dead recently had the opportunity to speak with Litz about what inspired The People Garden, collaborating with her cast on the project, what she learned from making The People Garden, and more.

Great to speak with you today, Nadia. I’m really fascinated by the Suicide Forest, so I thought this was a really interesting take on that environment. Was this something that you just tried to go in and explore, or was it something you researched? I'm curious what the draw was for you.

The way a film starts and the way it ends can tell a lot about a movie, as well as the particular style of the director behind the project. Numerous films throughout history have had memorable opening and closing shots that have elevated the feature in question, while also taking on a life of their own as iconic moments in cinema.

Following his first exploration of first and final frames in film, vimeo user Jacob T. Swinney has revisited the topic in a new video, looking at 70 new films and how their opening and closing mirror each other. Swinney had this to say in the episode description.

After numerous requests, I finally decided to create a sequel to “First and Final Frames”. Part II plays the opening and closing shots of 70 films side-by-side. Like the first video, some of the opening shots are strikingly similar to the final shots, while...