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Portuguese event could be one of the first film festivals to take place physically in Europe as lockdowns ease.

Portuguese film festival IndieLisboa, which had to abandon its original April 30 to May 10 dates, is pushing on with plans to hold its 17th edition at the end of August, if an easing of the global Covid-19 health crisis allows.

The event took the usual step of unveiling most of its 2020 selection on April 30 to mark what would have been the opening day.

“We wanted to do something symbolic,” festival director Miguel Valverde told Screen. “In a normal year, we tie up...

After years of having it on my watchlist, I caught up with Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène's Moolaadé last year and enjoyed it a great deal, leaving me hungry for more. The Criterion Collection has conveniently sailed in to quench the thirst, with its January 24 release of Sembene's first feature film, Black Girl, which joins the collection at spine #852. Black Girl saw its 50th anniversary last year and was restored by the World Cinema project in 4K resolution, the transfer that has been used for the disc here. The results are, predictably, terrific: aside from a handful of shots which still retain some visible spots in places, the digital print is crackling sharp, keeping its beautiful grain alive while betraying none of the gorgeous...

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

This respectful documentary stays faithful to Ousmane Sembène’s iconoclastic legend, leaving questions and contradictions by the wayside

You only need to watch 1966’s domestic-maid exposé Black Girl or 2004’s Fgm polemic Moolaadé to see that Ousmane Sembène’s iconoclastic power went undimmed throughout a 40-year directing career. This rather respectful documentary, co-directed and narrated by the director’s amanuensis, Samba Gadjigo – a part, like those earlier two films, of a new national touring programme of the man’s work – majors in the Senegalese’s trailblazing; most notably the fact that he was responsible for the first film shot by a black African. (Black Africans were banned from film-making in French colonies.) It certainly makes an easy enough case for him as directorial griot, fearlessly telling truth to power. But legacy trumps intensive scrutiny. Contradictions – such as how a former Marseille dockworker whose sworn aim was to represent his people...

Last year, the BBC polled a bunch of critics to determine the 100 greatest American films of all time and only six films released after 2000 placed at all. This year, the BBC decided to determine the “new classics,” films from the past 16 years that will likely stand the test of time, so they polled critics from around the globe for their picks of the 100 greatest films of the 21st Century so far. David Lynch’s “Mulholland Dr.” tops the list, Wong Kar-Wai’s “In The Mood For Love” places second, and Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers both have 2 films in the top 25. See the full results below.

Read More: The Best Movies of the 21st Century, According to IndieWire’s Film Critics

Though the list itself is fascinating, what’s also compelling are the statistics about the actual list. According to the the BBC, they polled 177 film critics from every continent except Antarctica.

In response to the outcome of a 2015 poll of the 100 Greatest American Films of All Time, BBC Culture recently threw critics a different question. Finding that last year’s results included only six films made since 2000, editors at the arts pages of the venerable broadcaster commissioned a new poll to determine the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century. The results are expansive — and intriguing. To get to the consensus favorite, critics reached all the way back to 2001 and David Lynch’s sexy/creepy surrealist noir Mulholland Drive. That film was also on Sight & Sound‘s venerable once-a-decade ranking of the Top 100 Films of All Time which last was conducted in 2012. The three other movies on that list to hail from the new millennium also made the cut (see rundown below).

The British media today is roundly praising the choice of Mulholland, and the list itself whose aim, BBC Culture says,...

Ryan Lambie Aug 23, 2016

A critics' survey puts Mullholland Drive at the top of the list of the best films since 2000. Did yours make the cut?

Movie critics love Linklater, Studio Ghibli, the Coens and the surrealist stylings of David Lynch. At least, that's if a newly-published list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century is anything to go by.

BBC Culture commissioned the poll, which took in responses from 177 film critics from all over the world. As a result, the top 100 includes an eclectic mix of the mainstream to independent movies, from dramas to sci-fi and off-beat comedies. Feew would be surprised to see things like Paolo Sorrentino's handsome Italian confection The Great Beauty propping up the lower end of the list, or that such acclaimed directors as Wes Anderson or the aforementioned Coens feature heavily.

What is pleasing to see, though, is how much good genre stuff has made the cut,...

Although we’re only about 16% into the 21st century thus far, the thousands of films that have been released have provided a worthy selection to reflect on the cinematic offerings as they stand. We’ve chimed in with our favorite animations, comedies, sci-fi films, and have more to come, and now a new critics’ poll that we’ve taken part in has tallied up the 21st century’s 100 greatest films overall.

The BBC has polled 177 critics from around the world, resulting in a variety of selections, led by David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive. Also in the top 10 was Wong Kar-wai‘s In the Mood For Love and Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life, which made my personal ballot (seen at the bottom of the page).

In terms of the years with the most selections, 2012 and 2013 each had 9, while Wes Anderson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Christopher Nolan, the Coens, Michael Haneke, and...

An Fyi from my inbox…

The New York State Writers Institute presents “The Films of Ousmane Sembène,” a mini-festival focusing on the work of one of African cinema’s “founding fathers,” on September 24 and on October 1, 2010.

Expected titles: Moolaadé (2004), La Noire de… (Black Girl) (1966), L’Heroisme au Quotidien (Daily Heroism) (1999), and The Making of Moolaadé (2005), directed by Sembène biographer Samba Gadjigo, who will also be present to discuss Sembène and his work.

This is a Free event, and open to the public. It all takes place on the Suny Albany, NY campus.

For additional information on the series, Click Here for the full program, dates and times, or contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620.

If you live in the area and haven’t seen any of Sembène’s films, and aren’t familiar with him, do yourself a favor and pencil in the event on your calendar. It’ll...

Movies are made up of images, even the bad ones. But the bad movies rarely leave any images lingering in your brain. The great films are the ones making great images. A great image is many things, by nature diffuse, and we might agree that any great image moves even when stopped still, opening its own cinematic world. Thus, The Notebook's decision to celebrate our recent decade not with a list but with this stream. Each contributor was asked to pick 1 film he or she wants to remember from the 2000s, select 1 image from that film to remember it by, and write one sentence to supplement their selection. We've done our best to craft not simply a grab bag but a cogent flow of the indelible, one image speaking to the next on a variety of registers: from film to film, between color and compositional rhymes, and, as you'll read,...

If you’re not already familiar with Al Jazeera English’s film programme, The Fabulous Picture Show, which you can catch online after episodes have aired, then I’d recommend it for its diverse coverage of independent film from around the world where both new and hot and established talent are exposed and explored.

Although the excerpt below was taken from an episode featuring Cary Fukunaga, director of the socio-political thriller Sin Nombre, the first part of the show has an interview with actor/producer Danny Glover, highlighting his political activism, from the documentary Soundtrack For A Revolution, which I’ve written about here before, and including his support for Hugo Chavez – who later went on to pledge funding for Glover to make a film about 18th century Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Overture – and the role of music and film in shaping fights for freedom. He also speaks about his...

Charulata by Satyajit Ray (top); Moolaadé by Ousmane Sembene (middle); El Sur by Víctor Erice (bottom) The Auteurs World Cup was launched yesterday, Nov. 16. David Hudson, formerly of The Daily and GreenCine Daily, describes the Awc thus: "It’s a competitive game measuring up national and regional cinemas against each other[,] created and organized by the online community at The Auteurs. Like the World Cup in soccer, only with movies. "Background: Kicked off in September with 32 teams, then separated into 8 groups of 4, from which the top 2 in each group have qualified for the last 16. The last 16 match line-ups are here. Each team has had a manager making the selections. In each match 3 films are [...]...

By Michael Atkinson

The seminal will behind everything that matters about sub-Saharan African cinema, and at the same time the world's most guileless filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene was virtually a one-man continental film culture for 40 years, establishing the cinematic syntax and priorities for an entire section of mankind, and its relationship with movies. From the first mini-feature, "Borom Sarret" (1964) to the last, vibrant, polemical film "Moolaadé" (2004), Sembene's work aches with sociopolitical austerity . as an artist, he's virtually style-free, almost unprofessional, but possessed of a voice as clear and uncomplicated as sunlight. Primal, unsophisticated experiences, the films are simple but never simplistic, lowbrow but unsensational, fastidiously realistic and yet unconcerned with sustaining illusion. His filmography is more or less divided between cool, undramatic autopsies on post-colonial norms and folly (1966's "Black Girl," 1968's "Mandabi," 1974's "Xala") and demi-epics of colonial horror (1971's Emitai, 1977's "Ceddo," 1987's "Camp de Thiaroye"). The slow burn,...

Million Dollar Baby knocked out the National Society of Film Critics, winning the critics' group Best Picture award and a shared Best Actress honor for Hilary Swank. Tying with Swank was the other critical favorite in the lead actress category, Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake; Jamie Foxx continued his winning streak by nabbing Best Actor for Ray. Despite Baby's taking home the top honor, it was perennial favorite Sideways that walked home with the most awards, taking three honors for supporting performers Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen as well as Best Screenplay. Zhang Yimou was named Best Director for two films released in the U.S. this year: 2002's Hero and the more recent House of Flying Daggers, which also won the cinematography award. Other winners included Moolaade (Foreign Language Film) and Tarnation (Non-Fiction Film). The last major critics group to give out awards, the National Society of Film Critics, while highly respected for their idiosyncratic choices, isn't much of an indicator for the Oscars . only three of their top winners (Annie Hall, Unforgiven, and Schindler's List) have won the Academy Award. Here's the entire list of winners:

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx (Ray)

Best Actress (tie): Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby)

Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church (Sideways)

Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen (Sideways)

Best Director: Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers and Hero)

Best Screenplay: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor (Sideways)

Best Foreign Language Movie: Moolaade

Best Non-Fiction Film: Tarnation

Best Cinematography: House of Flying Daggers...