News

At some point in a filmmaker's career, they reach a point where their reason for creating art changes. While young filmmakers are wide-eyed, innocent, and willing to do anything to further their careers, veterans of the craft tend to be more self-indulgent and picky about their projects. Typically, this is considered a director's "late period," a time when they refine and define their style and lose track of what it means to consider their audience. They're no longer shooting for critical success but personal accomplishment.

This is the case for Abel Ferrara, more specifically, his 2011 film 4:44 Last Day on Earth. With Willem Dafoe leading the charge, Ferrara crafted a delightfully offbeat apocalypse piece that failed to connect with general audiences. Since its release, however, the film has gained a cult following that endlessly sings its praises and will continue to until the end of time.

What is 4:44 Last Day on Earth?...

Ken Kelsch, the hard-charging cinematographer and Vietnam War veteran who shot the down-and-dirty classic Bad Lieutenant and 11 other features for iconoclastic director Abel Ferrara, has died. He was 76.

Kelsch died Monday at Hackettstown Medical Center in New Jersey after a battle with Covid and pneumonia, his son, Chris Kelsch, told The Hollywood Reporter.

“If you knew him, you probably have a story about him,” Chris wrote on Facebook. “He really was a great man, loved by many. A war hero who filled every room with his presence. An artist who never stopped being himself. A caring father who would do anything for his kids and grandkids. Shared his experience, wisdom and love with all. Our family will deeply miss him and always love him, as I’m sure many of you will as well.”

Kelsch also was the director of photography on Big Night (1996), co-directed, co-written and starring Stanley Tucci,...

Italy’s Taormina Film Festival kicks off its 69th edition Friday evening against the backdrop of its landmark Teatro Antico amphitheatre with a “Pavarotti Forever” benefit event headlined by Placido Domingo and Vittorio Grigolo.

It’s not the typical opening for a film festival, but it is in keeping with the eclectic programming of incoming artistic director Barrett Wissman, whose interview with Deadline on his plans for the festival can be read here.

Much is riding on the edition, with Wissman being brought in to raise its local and international profile after a turbulent decade, which was compounded by the Covid pandemic.

Topping the bill over the first weekend is the Italian premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny in the presence of Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen. It’s the first time a major Disney production has touched down at the festival since Inside Out in 2015. Indiana Jones,...

Market

The Cannes Film Market has launched Cannes Investors Circle, which will commence with a keynote introduction by Liesl Copland, Participant’s executive VP, content and platform strategy, who will offer her perspective on the modern media landscape. The initiative will also feature a panel discussion titled Navigating Film Finance in a Changing World that aims to offer insights on global financing and market trends in 2023 and beyond. The panelists will include Elisa Alvares, finance expert at Jacaranda Consultants; Rikke Ennis, CEO of REinvent Studios; Emilie Georges, co-founder and CEO of Paradise City; Mike Goodridge, U.K. producer at Good Chaos who is also presenting Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero” in the festival’s official competition; with film festival consultant Wendy Mitchell moderating.

The event will also include an invitation-only session where VIP private investors will listen to pitches of nine new global film projects at the investment stage. The...

The Italian premieres of Cannes Film Festival opener Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny will be among the international highlights of the 69th Taormina Film Festival which gave a taster of its line-up at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday.

Principal cast for James Mangold’s Indiana Jones reboot including Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies and Mads Mikkelsen are expected to be in attendance for the screening.

The event, unfolding June 23 to July 1 in Sicily, is under the new co-artistic directorship of Barrett Wissman this year.

There will also be Italian premieres for Lisa Cortes’s Little Richard: I Am Everything, a documentary about the life and career of the legendary musician, and A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One, starring Teyana Taylor.

Italian highlights include the world premiere of the comedy The Worst Days by Edoardo Leo,...

Abel Ferrara has never been much for salvation, at least not in the sense that it might be handed to us on a silver platter by someone who died more than 2,000 years ago; his “Bad Lieutenant” wasn’t exactly a self-portrait, but Harvey Keitel referring to Jesus Christ as a “rat fuck” didn’t come out of nowhere. In recent years, however, the grindhouse nihilism of Ferrara’s earlier work has been tempered by the personal acceptance of impending doom.

The scraggly Bronx-born filmmaker traded Catholicism for Buddhism around the same time as he relocated from New York to Rome, and movies like “4:44 Last Day on Earth,” “Tommaso,” and “Pasolini” — while still rank with the raw sewage that stops up human civilization — began to look inward for answers even as they confronted the end of the world. It’s as if the now-70-year-old Ferrara was steeling himself for...

A year ago, while much of the world remained on lockdown, Willem Dafoe got to work. As film productions gradually started back up, the veteran actor was ready for them. The result is that the ever-versatile performer has a wide range of projects in the pipeline, from “The Northman” (Robert Eggers’ follow-up to “The Lighthouse”) to Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.” But one movie just released in theaters has been waiting for its moment since the early days of the pandemic: “Siberia,” his latest collaboration with cinematic provocateur Abel Ferrara, premiered in competition at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival shortly before lockdowns spread throughout the globe.

Now, Lionsgate has released the movie in theaters and VOD, marking one of the bigger U.S. companies to get behind the legendary New York filmmaker in some time. That’s an especially notable outcome because “Siberia” is one of the most ambitious and...

In Abel Ferrara’s films over the last 10 years, the apocalypse has been looming, waiting to infect everyone in its vicinity with darkness, death, and devastation. In Tommaso, there is doom impending even in an otherwise stable family unit, paralyzing its protagonist with anxieties and sufferings so intense that there’s no chance of a happy ending. In Pasolini, the apocalypse is made further personal. The inevitable death of the Italian filmmaker is built towards with cosmic sadness, the unfinished work of his being brought to life by Ferrara like half-remembered dreams before his violent murder. Within his masterpiece 4:44 Last Day on Earth, the apocalypse is literal, two people desperately trying to cling onto each other before time itself runs out in front of their eyes. All of Ferrara’s pursuits of understanding death and the horrors of it are present in his latest feature film Siberia, one that...

Abel Ferrara will be awarded the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Ferrara, who is based in Rome these days, will be handed the award honoring an artist’s original mark on contemporary cinema during a ceremony on Sept. 5 prior to the screening of his latest doc titled “Sportin’ Life.” The doc is described in a Venice statement as an “intimate and lush” look at his own life.

It’s Ferrara’s “world refracted through his art – music, filmmaking, his collaborators and inspirations… his partner Cristina Chiriac and their daughter Anna, their life in the eternal city, Roma… as the corona virus descends and paralyses the world,” the statement said.

“Sportin’ Life,” which is screening out-of-competition and runs 65 minutes, features turns by Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe, Cristina Chiriac, Anna Ferrara, Paul Hipp, and Joe Delia.

Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera in the statement praised Ferrara...

Filmmaker Abel Ferrara and actor Willem Dafoe have a bit of an ongoing working relationship. For decades now, the filmmaker and actor have collaborated on a number of films including “New Rose Hotel,” “Go Go Tales,” “4:44 Last Day on Earth,” and “Pasolini.” However, his most recent collaboration, “Tommaso” has yet to hit theaters officially.

Continue reading ‘Tommaso’ Trailer: Abel Ferrara & Willem Dafoe Collaborate Once Again In This Drama From Last Year’s Cannes at The Playlist.