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The Kino Film Collection streaming service is celebrating the annual Sundance Film Festival season with a special January program featuring festival-alum films.

IndieWire can announce that 49 movies that have previously played at Sundance will be part of the Kino Film Collection, including “Prey for Rock and Roll” and “The Disappearance of My Mother” — both new-to-the-platform films begin streaming January 23. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” will also make its streaming debut later this season.

Highlights from the Kino Film Collection Sundance edition include Todd Haynes’ iconic 1991 film “Poison,” Taika Waititi’s breakout “Boy,” Eliza Hittman’s “It Felt Like Love,” and Chloe Zhao’s “Songs My Brother Taught Me.” Alex Gibney’s documentary “Finding Fela” and Nina Menkes’ acclaimed “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” are additionally among the selected titles.

The Kino Film Collection similarly launched a Toronto International Film Festival edition in 2024, with Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Alps” and Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden.”

Kino...

The independent movie service has become the streaming home to some of the best cinema in the world.

After just over a month in theaters, Coralie Fargeat’s acclaimed and outrageous body horror film “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, will make its exclusive streaming debut this Halloween on the global film streamer Mubi, and to prepare from the switch, it’s time to countdown some of the platform’s best films!

Whether you’re activating or stabilizing your Mubi subscription to watch the must-see new release, the arthouse movie streamer is not only housed with classics like “In the Mood for Love,” “All About My Mother,” and more, it’s also packed with its own collection of Mubi-exclusive releases. From black comedies to neo-noir love stories, here are some of the best movies available to stream right now exclusively on Mubi!

7-Day Trial via amazon.com Mubi...

One Shot invites close readings of the basic unit of film grammar.Beach Rats.In the sanctuary of a church, Frankie (Harris Dickinson) watches his younger sister, Carla, shares a few words about their late father. “If my dad were here with us today,” Carla says, her voice adolescent and bright amid the grief of her father's funeral, “he’d want everyone to be happy.” Happiness: what does happiness mean to Frankie, whose eyes always appear alert but startled, feigning haughtiness, belying fear? Here, the camera is a gentle companion, nestling in to peer over Frankie’s shoulder, moving with his hand as he reaches for a laminated prayer card of Saint Sebastian from the church pew. Frankie contemplates the card, his thumb moving over Sebastian, who peers up to a hopeless sun as he bleeds out, body shot full of arrows. With our eyes on his hands, we wonder what Frankie is thinking about,...

Emerging as one of the great directors of the sensitives and complexities of youth with her three features thus far, It Felt Like Love, Beach Rats, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always, we’ve been waiting to see what filmmaker Eliza Hittman would tackle for her fourth feature. It’s now been unveiled thanks to an announcement on projects that Rooftop Films’ 2024 Filmmaker Fund will be supporting.

Titled Motherlove, Hittman’s fourth film will follow Ana, “a Georgian immigrant in Brooklyn, who takes a job caring for Lori, an elderly woman in Manhattan, where she is forced to navigate end of life issues and complex family dynamics, while haunted by the separation from her own young daughter whom she has left behind in Tbilisi, Georgia.”

The announcement also features a new documentary in the works from Debra Granik and Alex Mallis exploring the cannabis industry in NYC. Here’s a synopsis:...

Touching down in Heraklion, on the Greek island of Crete, marks the beginning of summer holidays for Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake), and Em (Enva Lewis), a trio of best friends who have just taken their A-levels and for whom school is the last thing on their mind. The first thing is… well, the title gives it away. British teens on holiday at a Greek resort means booze, booze, and more booze, but Molly Manning Walker’s debut film has the power to take these prosaic cultural archetypes and use them as tools to tell a poignant story about the ambivalences of growing up, female friendships, and consent.

Amidst a lot of vodka, “never have I ever,” and pool parties, the girls form their own gravitational center and stick to it. Yet their friendship is not without complications: underneath the surface of jokes and banter lies a layer of teen-girl angst,...

Five TV directors will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2023 Emmy Awards contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Thursday, May 18, at 4:00 p.m. Pt; 7:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Daniel Montgomery and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

Accused (Fox)

Synopsis: Chronicles ordinary people getting caught up in extraordinary situations, where one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back.

Bio: Marlee Matlin is an Oscar winner for “Children of a Lesser God” and Emmy nominee for “Picket Fences,” “Seinfeld,” “The Practice” and...

The Wu-Tang Clan continues to be one of the most successful rap acts in the history of American music. “Wu-Tang: An American Saga” is a gritty dramatic television series appearing on the Disney-backed streaming platform, Hulu. Set in New York City in the 1990s, this series highlights the actual events surrounding the Wu-Tang Clan’s formation.

Created by original Wu-Tang founder-member Bobby Diggs, known professionally as RZA, in collaboration with “Watchmen” screenwriter Alex Tse, the series showcases the many hard knocks Diggs endured on his ascent to a better life through music. It was also nominated for an Emmy in 2020 for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music.

This article will feature the most current information on the popular Hulu special while providing insights into characters and episodes.

Where Can You Watch “Wu-Tang: An American Saga?”

At present, there is no need to look for “Wu-Tang: An American Saga” on Amazon Prime Video or Netflix.

Job security in the film industry is never a sure thing. In this moment, it might look particularly fragile if you work in a vulnerable department of Netflix or a redundant division of Warner Bros. To that list, you could also add film festival programmers — and they should have some of the most secure jobs in the industry.

Consider how Netflix stock hits a new low each day in part to an overreliance on algorithms and too much content that not enough people watch. The overwhelming amount of global content production has forced even the biggest streamers to realize that curatorial decisions matter more than pure data, which means the skillsets of a programmer — and it is a skill — should be at their highest demand. This is particularly true for film festivals, which are defined by curation.

And yet recent events speak to the fragility of the profession. Last month,...

Having recently wrapped shooting in upstate New York, the producers of Jamie Sisley’s debut feature “Stay Awake,” a dramatic family comedy about opioid addiction, have revealed key cast details.

In the film, Emmy and two-time Golden Globe Award Nominee Chrissy Metz (“This is Us”) plays Michelle, a loving and well-meaning mother of two whose struggle with prescription drug addiction is adversely affecting her entire family. Wyatt Oleff plays Ethan, the quick-witted younger brother about to leave the nest, and Fin Argus (“Clouds”) plays Derek, the eldest sibling who’s desires to care for his family are keeping him from moving forward with his own life.

Set in a small community in Virginia, “Stay Awake” confronts a serious and common problem facing many rural families across the country without dwelling explicitly on the negatives, instead choosing to address them with a very human mix of humor and levity.

“There was...

Daniel Kaluuya’s performance in “Judas and the Black Messiah” has garnered a lot of awards buzz for the actor, who plays Fred Hampton, the iconic Chairman of the Black Panther Party. “It’s not about me,” he told Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “This film is bigger than us. There was something coming through us. It’s hard to not feel it when you’re dressed as him.”

While portraying the civil rights activist was nerve-wracking for the Oscar-nominated star of “Get Out,” Kaluuya accepts any challenge he’s given. On this edition of the podcast, the British star opens up about how he learned about the role while shooting Ryan Coogler’s box-office smash “Black Panther.” Listen below:

Kaluuya also opens up about the criticism that a British actor would be portraying the fallen Hampton and how he’s a “vessel” in the cinematic art form. In addition,...

Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” won the top prize at Mexico’s Los Cabos Film Festival, adding the award to a brace of trophies dating back this year to a Silver Bear at Berlin and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award in Sundance.

Tipped as a contender in 2021’s Oscar race, teen drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was hailed by Variety as a “quietly devastating gem,” “both of a piece with, and a significant step forward from” Hittman’s prior youth-in-crisis works “Beach Rats” and “It Felt Like Love.”

Mexican writer-director Bruno Santamaría Razo’s “Things We Dare Not Do” won Los Cabos’ Cinecolor-Shalalá Award. The second doc feature from Bruno Santamaría Razo whose debut “Margarita” won a Mezcal Prize special mention at the 2016 Guadalajara Festival, “Things We Dare Not Do,” sits on the borderlands between documentary and fiction, it tells the story of a gay teen...

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release: 

Kino Now Celebrates its First Anniversary with Free Movie Binge

A Special Selection of Eight Films Available to Rent Free Through November 15th

Featuring:

Beanpole

Boy

The Complete Metropolis

It Felt Like Love

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Variety

The Hitch-Hiker

Walk With Me

Visit

https://kinonow.com/series/anniversary-binge

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Kino Lorber celebrates the one-year anniversary of its digital streaming platform, Kino Now, with a selection of its most essential films. To mark the anniversary, Kino Lorber is making available for a limited time eight films to rent for free, reflecting a mix of award-winning international, documentary, American independent, and classic cinema. The coupon can be redeemed through November 15, and once redeemed will be active for 15 days. Sign-up for Kino Now is free, no subscription required.

Click...

Veteran casting director Linda Lowy has been named EVP Casting for WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, TNT, TBS and truTV, the company announced Wednesday.

In her new role, Lowy, who cast Shonda Rhimes’ series such as Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, will be responsible for overseeing casting for scripted series, feature films, docudramas, animation, and unscripted programming for the streaming platform and linear networks.

Additionally, Henry Russell Bergstein has been named VP Casting, reporting to Lowy. He’ll be responsible for casting for both scripted and unscripted content, scouting talent and working with other WarnerMedia Entertainment departments, series casting directors, talent, and their reps.

“Linda is an unstoppable force who has cast some of the most iconic and longest lasting programs, not only changing television, but also having a ripple effect on our culture at large,” said Kevin Reilly, Chief Content Officer, HBO Max and President,...

Film fans who subscribe to the Criterion Channel have reason to rejoice, as next month's offerings are sure to whet their cinematic appetites. Not only are Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and The Age of Innocence coming to the streaming service, but there are also retrospectives on tap for director Nicole Holofcener and action superstar Jackie Chan, whose 1985 classic Police Story and its 1988 sequel will be available on the channel. Other May 2020 highlights include the California movies The Limey and Mulholland Drive, Eliza Hittman's first film It Felt Like Love, Yorgos Lanthimos' confounding comedy Dogtooth, …...

Few indie directors today navigate private spaces and fraught environments as effectively as Eliza Hittman, whose first two features “It Felt Like Love” and “Beach Rats” heralded a singular chronicler of young people in the thick of complicated desire.

With “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which premiered at Sundance and received an early VOD release on Friday after its theatrical release was truncated by the coronavirus, Hittman looks at one of the consequences of desire, as specifically experienced by the half that can get pregnant. In relaying a pair of teenage cousins’ tense overnight journey across the state line, Hittman wades into one of the more charged subjects of our time — abortion access — with the kind of sensitivity, focus and detail that will ensure its place as a dramatic standard for how to put a human face on a controversial topic.

Despite a tone that avoids explicit politics, there’s absolutely...

Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski know more than most about getting difficult stories to large audiences. Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” which he and Romanski produced through their production company Pastel, came together on a $1.5 million budget and ultimately grossed over $65 million in addition to winning Best Picture. Since then, the company — co-founded by Sara Murphy and Mark Ceryak — has supported a handful of other filmmakers, including Aaron Katz’s L.A. neo-noir “Gemini.” Their most recent credit comes out this week on VOD, but it wasn’t supposed to work out that way.

Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” won prizes in Sundance and Berlin before Focus Features released it in early March — days before theaters closed nationwide. The Universal subsidiary is now following a strategy it applied to movies like “The Invisible Man” and “The Hunt” by pushing “Never Rarely” into VOD on Friday.

More from IndieWireFocus Features Sends 'Never...

Universal leads the pack in establishing the new normal for premium on demand (Pvod). It made “The Hunt,” “The Invisible Man,” and Focus Features’ “Emma” — all cut off at the knees when theaters closed around the country — available for rental March 20 ($19.99 for 48 hours) on multiple platforms. Other studios followed suit (check out the results here), and now Focus will put Eliza Hittman’s Sundance and Berlin prize-winner “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, on demand April 3.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who sadly was just diagnosed with coronavirus, is this policy’s driver. He’s long wanted to experiment in this space; Shell moved over to NBCUniversal from owner Comcast, which has a vested interest in cable and home video. So that side of the company is pushing the theatrical side to play ball and let them test price points and audience preferences.

Thus, gritty...

Universal leads the pack in establishing the new normal for premium on demand (Pvod). It made “The Hunt,” “The Invisible Man,” and Focus Features’ “Emma” — all cut off at the knees when theaters closed around the country — available for rental March 20 ($19.99 for 48 hours) on multiple platforms. Other studios followed suit (check out the results here), and now Focus will put Eliza Hittman’s Sundance and Berlin prize-winner “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, on demand April 3.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who sadly was just diagnosed with coronavirus, is this policy’s driver. He’s long wanted to experiment in this space; Shell moved over to NBCUniversal from owner Comcast, which has a vested interest in cable and home video. So that side of the company is pushing the theatrical side to play ball and let them test price points and audience preferences.

More from...

by Murtada Elfadl

The first great movie of 2020 has arrived. Visceral, exquisite and artfully rigorous Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always drops the audience into the experience of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) embark across state lines to New York City on a fraught journey trying to secure an abortion. The performances from newcomers Flanignan and Ryder are stunning in their simplicity and authenticity and Hittman reaches new heights with her assured filmmaking no matter what you thought of her previous films, Beach Rats (2017) and It Felt Like Love (2013). The movie won raves at this year's Sundance and won the Grand Jury Prize, or 2nd place, at the Berlinale last month.

Ryder, Hittman and Flanigan at the Berlinale

We recently met with Hittman in New York. [This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Murtada Elfadl: Congratulations on the film.

The 2020 release calendar hit a snag with the coronavirus outbreak, but not before a number of cinematic highlights made their way to U.S. screens. IndieWire spent much of 2019 reviewing films on the festival circuit prior to their release dates, and some of them finally made it to theaters this year. Others simply materialized over the last few months, and we’re all the better for having them.

Our running list of the best movies of 2020 so far only includes movies that have received a U.S. theatrical release or have become available on VOD platforms accessible in North America. Films that received a B+ or higher qualify for the list. We’ll keep it updated as the year continues. Check out brief excerpts below and links to the full review.

More from IndieWire'Adventure Time' Is Slowly Going Off the Air, And Everyone's Moving On'Children of Men' Turns 10: Finding...

Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is 17 and anxious. She needs an abortion. But in her hometown in rural Pennsylvania — where we first meet her singing a he-done-her-wrong cover of the Exciters’ “He Got the Power” in a high school talent show — the clinic demands that a minor have parental consent. Since that’s not happening — and her scary attempts to induce a miscarriage by repeatedly punching herself in the stomach also fail — Autumn persuades her cousin and high school classmate Skylar (Talia Ryder) to join her on a bus to New York,...

Brooklyn filmmaker Eliza Hittman found out the month before Sundance that her abortion drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was also invited to the Berlinale Competition, where her film quickly topped the Screen critics’ jury grid, beating Christian Petzold’s popular “Undine,” and wound up taking home the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize from the Competition jury, despite chairman Jeremy Irons’ once-stated pro-abortion views, which he distanced himself from at the Berlinale.

“I don’t think I make crowd-pleasing Grand Jury Prize movies,” Hittman told me ahead of the premiere. “Everything I do is a little off to the side. I didn’t come here with any expectations. Juries are always wildly unpredictable. I did not make the movie to preach to the choir either. This is an art film, but I knew at some point we would be met with people with different ideas about women’s reproductive rights. I...

Brooklyn filmmaker Eliza Hittman found out the month before Sundance that her abortion drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was also invited to the Berlinale Competition, where her film quickly topped the Screen critics’ jury grid, beating Christian Petzold’s popular “Undine,” and wound up taking home the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize from the Competition jury, despite chairman Jeremy Irons’ once-stated pro-abortion views, which he distanced himself from at the Berlinale.

“I don’t think I make crowd-pleasing Grand Jury Prize movies,” Hittman told me ahead of the premiere. “Everything I do is a little off to the side. I didn’t come here with any expectations. Juries are always wildly unpredictable. I did not make the movie to preach to the choir either. This is an art film, but I knew at some point we would be met with people with different ideas about women’s reproductive rights. I...

As the entire film industry reacted to images of convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein being led to jail in handcuffs, women at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival had much to celebrate. This year’s program, under the new leadership of Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, continued the trend among European festivals reaching for gender parity in its programming, with six films directed by women in the main Competition — many of them gaining upbeat reviews and global buyer interest — as well as many other strong stories by and about women throughout the sprawling Berlinale selection.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the progress in this year’s lineup.

1. “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” broke out at the festival.

Brooklyn filmmaker Eliza Hittman found out that her third feature had been accepted in the Berlinale competition a month before Sundance in January, where her film won a special jury prize for “neorealism.” The...

As the entire film industry reacted to images of convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein being led to jail in handcuffs, women at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival had much to celebrate. This year’s program, under the new leadership of Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, continued the trend among European festivals reaching for gender parity in its programming, with six films directed by women in the main Competition — many of them gaining upbeat reviews and global buyer interest — as well as many other strong stories by and about women throughout the sprawling Berlinale selection.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the progress in this year’s lineup.

1. “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” broke out at the festival.

Brooklyn filmmaker Eliza Hittman found out that her third feature had been accepted in the Berlinale competition a month before Sundance in January, where her film won a special jury prize for “neorealism.” The...

Above: Never Rarely Sometimes AlwaysOf the many narratives that have emerged from this year’s Sundance’s indie extravaganza, there is one that seems to herald a promising sign of change: some of the most exciting works screened in Park City over the past couple of weeks were films by women, about women. Few works unveiled at the fest this year have earned as much praise as Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which follows 17-year-old Autumn (newcomer Sidney Flanigan) in her journey from Pennsylvania to New York City to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Whether or not the film stands as Hittman’s career-best (a suggestion raised by David Sims at The Atlantic), it marks a departure from the director’s prior youth-in-crisis tales Beach Rats (2017) and It Felt Like Love (2013). Largely because, as observed by Devika Girish at Film Comment, this study of fraught teenagehood “turns into something...

In just three films, writer-director Eliza Hittman has crafted some of the most vivid, intimate coming-of-age dramas of the century thus far. Following 2013’s It Felt Like Love and 2017’s Beach Rats, she returns with Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Starring Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder, marking both of their debut roles in film, it’s a deeply moving chronicle of a teenager’s struggle to terminate her pregnancy.

In my review from the Sundance premiere, I sad it’s her “most powerful film, culminating in a sensitive, stirring experience free from heavy-handed sensationalism. As the moral, ethical, and legal debate of abortion continues amongst higher powers, Hittman as provided an essential, specific look at just one person’s struggle to have control over her own body. By doing so with such a delicate, considered perspective, she’s giving a voice to millions of women going through the same experience. And it’s time to listen.

Three films into her career, filmmaker Eliza Hittman continues to prove herself as one of contemporary cinema’s most empathetic and skilled chroniclers of American youth. Hittman’s trio of features — “It Felt Like Love,” “Beach Rats,” and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” her first studio effort — have all zoomed in on blue-collar teens on the edge of sexual awakening, often of the dangerous variety. Hittman’s ability to write and direct such tender films has long been bolstered by her interest in casting them with fresh new talents, all the better to sell the veracity of her stories and introduce moviegoers to emerging actors worthy of big attention.

The backwards — or, at least, stuck-in-time — attitudes of the film’s small-town Pennsylvania setting are laid bare in its opening credits, as quiet teenager Autumn sings at a high school talent show mostly populated by students wearing costumes more suited to a...

The basic plot of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is easy enough to describe. A 17-year-old girl named Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) winds up pregnant in a small Pennsylvania town. Prevented from seeking an abortion by the state’s parental consent laws, she takes off for New York City with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), where what they’d assumed would be a one-day procedure winds up proving considerably more complicated.

But that synopsis, and the polemical “issue movie” treatment it might suggest, hardly does justice to the surgically precise emotional calibration of writer-director Eliza Hittman’s exceptional film, which is both of a piece with, and a significant step forward from, her prior youth-in-crisis works “Beach Rats” and “It Felt Like Love.” At once dreamlike and ruthlessly naturalistic, steadily composed yet shot through with roiling currents of anxiety, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is a quietly devastating gem.

When we first meet Autumn – introverted,...

In her hypnotic 2017 feature Beach Rats, Eliza Hittman trained a tough yet lyrical gaze on the conflicted self-discovery of a teenager in summertime blue-collar Brooklyn, exploring his sexuality while dodging the toxic masculinity of his tribal buddies. Trading that sun-blasted environment for a much darker intimacy, the writer-director returns to the adolescent female focus of her insightful first feature, It Felt Like Love, though that film's hunger for sexual experience has made way here for an uneasy reckoning with its collateral damage, as a young woman struggles to take control of her body after finding herself pregnant.

Slated for a ...

In her hypnotic 2017 feature Beach Rats, Eliza Hittman trained a tough yet lyrical gaze on the conflicted self-discovery of a teenager in summertime blue-collar Brooklyn, exploring his sexuality while dodging the toxic masculinity of his tribal buddies. Trading that sun-blasted environment for a much darker intimacy, the writer-director returns to the adolescent female focus of her insightful first feature, It Felt Like Love, though that film's hunger for sexual experience has made way here for an uneasy reckoning with its collateral damage, as a young woman struggles to take control of her body after finding herself pregnant.

Slated for a ...

Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” follows Autumn, a 17-year-old girl in rural Pennsylvania, who is pregnant and desperate to get an abortion. A minor in a state that requires parental consent, she embarks on a dangerous journey into New York City, accompanied by her cousin, to find a clinic where she can have the procedure done. “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” will debut at this year’s Sundance fest on Jan. 24 with a fierce sense of urgency, arriving in a presidential election year that could determine the makeup of the Supreme Court and with it a woman’s right to choose. Focus Features will release the film theatrically on March 13, at the height of primary season.

Despite that backdrop, Hittman says she doesn’t expect to change many attitudes around a polarizing issue. She was more interested in capturing the human drama — the fear and anguish of a young...

Sundance Film Festival favorite Eliza Hittman has been steadily crafting intimate, shot-on-film, coming-of-age stories for more than a decade. Her first feature, “A Lot Like Love,” stormed Park City in 2013, followed by 2017’s coming-out drama “Beach Rats” with Harris Dickinson. She’s since directed episodes of the HBO series “High Maintenance,” and for Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why.” Now, Hittman is finally coming back to the Sundance Film Festival with a new feature as writer/director, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.” Focus Features will open the movie Friday, March 13, following its January 24 bow in Park City. Watch the first trailer below.

Here’s the synopsis: “The film is an intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) embark across state lines to New York City on a fraught journey of friendship,...

After crafting two of the most vivid, intimate coming-of-age dramas this decade with 2013’s It Felt Like Love and 2017’s Beach Rats, director Eliza Hittman is following it up with another teen-focused film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Ahead of a Sundance world premiere and a release in March, Focus Features has now released the first trailer.

Described as an intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania, the story follows Autumn and her cousin Skylar who embark on a brave, fraught journey across state lines to New York City when faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support.

Led by newcomers Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder (Matilda The Musical), the ensemble also features Théodore Pellerin (lead of the fantastic Genesis), Ryan Eggold (BlacKkKlansman), and Sharon Van Etten. Hittman has also reteamed with cinematographer Hélène Louvart.

See the trailer below and return for our review.

Written and directed by Eliza Hittman,...

Bangladeshi filmmaker Farooki wrote the film with David Barker (White Sun) as a script consultant.

Award-winning Us producer Shrihari Sathe has boarded Mostofa Farooki’s upcoming drama No Land’s Man, which also has Australian actress Megan Mitchell joining Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the cast.

Currently in pre-production for an early 2020 shoot, the mostly English-language film tells the story of a South Asian man struggling with identity issues whose journey becomes more complicated when he meets an Australian girl in the Us. Bangladeshi filmmaker Farooki wrote the film with David Barker (White Sun) as a script consultant.

New York-based Sathe received...

Bangladeshi filmmaker Farooki wrote the film with David Barker (White Sun) as a script consultant.

Award-winning Us producer Shrihari Sathe has boarded Mostofa Farooki’s upcoming drama No Man’s Land, which also has Australian actress Megan Mitchell joining Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the cast.

Currently in pre-production for an early 2020 shoot, the mostly English-language film tells the story of a South Asian man struggling with identity issues whose journey becomes more complicated when he meets an Australian girl in the Us. Bangladeshi filmmaker Farooki wrote the film with David Barker (White Sun) as a script consultant.

New York-based Sathe received...

In late June, the Sundance Film Festival announced that after running the festival for 11 years, the 2020 edition would be John Cooper’s last. Sundance declined to offer specific plans on the hiring process as the festival searches for a new director, but sources with knowledge of its plans say that the board hopes to fill Cooper’s role by the end of the fall. The festival has been known to promote from within, but Sundance is engaged in a broader search, and only a few candidates have stepped forward.

“We’re talking to candidates from a broad array of backgrounds — and those conversations are going to continue for at least several months,” said Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam. “The festival is dynamic and evolving, and we look forward to finding the right new director to lead us forward. In the meantime, we’re all excited to celebrate Cooper and his...

After crafting two of the most vivid, intimate coming-of-age dramas this decade with 2013’s It Felt Like Love and 2017’s Beach Rats, director Eliza Hittman is following it up with another teen-focused film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, with the welcome news that it has already wrapped production.

Described as an “intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania,” the story follows Autumn and her cousin Skylar who “embark on a brave, fraught journey across state lines to New York City” when “faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support.”

Led by newcomers Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder (Matilda The Musical), the ensemble also features Théodore Pellerin, Ryan Eggold (BlacKkKlansman), and Sharon Van Etten. Hittman has also reteamed with cinematographer Hélène Louvart.

Produced by Pastel’s Adele Romanski and Sara Murphy, the film will be distributed by Focus Features. There’s no word if we might see...

Exclusive: Focus Features, Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk outfit Pastel and BBC Films have teamed up on Eliza Hittman (Beach Rats) feature Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Written and directed by Hittman, the film is an intimate portrayal of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn and her cousin Skylar embark on a fraught journey across state lines to New York City.

Starring are Sidney Flanigan as Autumn and Talia Ryder as Skylar. Cast also includes Théodore Pellerin (Boy Erased), Ryan Eggold (BlacKkKlansman), and Sharon Van Etten (The Oa).

Production was co-financed by Tango Entertainment, BBC Films and Mutressa Movies and the under-the-radar movie recently wrapped in New York. Pic is produced by Pastel’s Adele Romanski and Sara Murphy, the production outfit behind Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Focus Features will distribute worldwide with Universal Pictures International,...

How do you engage an audience in 2018? It’s a question facing many content creators in the entertainment space, and the one posed in a series of interviews with filmmakers organized the New York Foundation for the Arts. Film Society of Lincoln Center deputy director Eugene Hernandez sat down with Flavio Alves (“Tom in America”), Yance Ford (“Strong Island”), and Eliza Hittman (“Beach Rats”) to talk about the role an audience plays in the creation of their films, getting audiences involved in their processes, and the best tools for building awareness.

For the Brazilian-born Alves, whose short “Tom in America” paved the way for his upcoming feature-length debut, audience engagement begins early, first through finding partner organizations. For example, the new film he’s developing centers on about a Mexican trans woman living in New York, so he reached out to the Mexican embassy, as well as with trans and Lgbtq advocacy groups.

There are a multitude of reasons why any film may get unfairly overlooked. It could be a lack of marketing resources to provide a substantial push, or, due to a minuscule roll-out, not enough critics and audiences to be the champions it might require. It could simply be the timing of the picture itself; even in the world of studio filmmaking, some features take time to get their due. With an increasingly crowded marketplace, there are more reasons than ever that something might not find an audience and, as with last year, we’ve rounded up the releases that deserved more attention.

Note that all of the below films made less than $1 million at the domestic box office at the time of posting — VOD figures are not accounted for, as they normally aren’t made public — and are, for the most part, left out of most year-end conversations. Sadly, many...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: What is the most overlooked and/or underrated movie of 2017?

E. Oliver Whitney, Screencrush.com, @cinemabite

Despite the critical praise, “A Fantastic Woman” only a one-week qualifying run last month, and I worry is it’ll easily be forgotten this awards season. Daniela Vega gives one of the most astounding performances I’ve seen this year, one that comes from somewhere fierce and internal, portraying the life and struggle of a trans woman that cinema has rarely shown an interest in exploring. But since you can’t see it until it has a proper release in Febraury, do check one of the year’s other...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Beach Rats (Eliza Hittman)

Burgeoning sexuality is the basis for nearly all coming-of-age films, but with her specific eye, Eliza Hittman makes it feel like we’re watching this genre unfold for the first time. With only two features to her name, she’s captured the experience with a sensuality and intimacy nearly unprecedented in American independent filmmaking. Following 2013’s It Felt Like Love, the writer-director follows it with...

Being a teenager is difficult enough when there isn’t a serial killer on the loose. Not making things easier in “Kill Me Please” is the fact that, for 15-year-old Bia (Valentina Herszage), the recent string of murders is perversely fascinating — the kind of thing she’d post on Facebook or like on Instagram, not least because one of the victims bears a striking resemblance to her.

Read More:‘Tulip Fever’ Review: This Bizarre, Long-Delayed Historical Romance Was Not Worth the Wait

A kind of “Virgin Homicides,” Anita Rocha da Silveira’s debut feature takes place in a well-to-do Rio de Janeiro struggling to understand the violence that’s invaded its neighborhood. Bia and her three besties talk about boys, parties, and the ghost that may or may not haunt their school — all of it ubiquitous yet unknowable. Bia’s conception of such adolescent milestones has been so filtered through...

British actor Harris Dickinson gives a smashing breakthrough performance in Beach Rats. He plays Frankie, a Brooklyn teen having a sexual-identity crisis. He's attracted to men, but the bros he hangs with are, well, the opposite of enlightened. Frankie's confusion escalates when he meets Simone (the excellent Madeline Weinstein), a girl who might make his life a whole lot easier. But Internet chat rooms give Frankie the chance to score hookups with older men. The sex is secret, but Frankie's hunger for it is palpable. 

Writer-director Eliza Hittman, a Brooklynite herself,...

With just two films, Eliza Hittman has established herself as one of the premier chroniclers of wayward youth. With the patient understanding of a teacher who reaches her students on a deeper level than most, she captures onscreen what most teenagers struggle to put into words. So never mind the sophomore slump: Hittman has followed “It Felt Like Love” with an equally impressive second feature, one that feels like both a spiritual successor to her sensitive debut and a strange new beast all its own. “Beach Rats” takes its title from a slang term for kids who aimlessly while away their days on.

Call it Bro Travail. Beach Rats, Eliza Hittman’s eroticized study of young male bodies and repressed sexuality along the arcades of Coney Island, owes a sizable debt to the films of Claire Denis (particularly a certain desert-set Herman Melville adaption), going so far as to copy the extraordinary French director’s cryptic fragmentation of close-ups and eye lines. On a conceptual level, it’s immaculate: the druggy summertime exploits of a closeted, often shirtless 19-year-old (Harris Dickinson, a really impressive unknown) and his gaggle of no-good macho buddies rendered as a grainy mixture of skin, smoke, and gazes. But Hittman (It Felt Like Love) turns out to be a conventional storyteller; despite her evocative styling and Dickinson’s surprisingly assured lead performance, her sophomore feature remains confined in monotonous, psychologically shallow coming-of-age-drama indiedom. It’s a shame, as Beach Rats has one of the year’s best parting shots...

Risky and risqué, indie films have always been a home for bold, honest, and controversial visions of teens’ sexuality. Eliza Hittman’s “Beach Rats,” opening this week after bowing at Sundance in January, is another notch in the belt of the sub-genre, a sensitive and often shocking look inside the coming-of-age of a young Brooklyn teen.

Like the best of these films, it’s not all about hormones; it builds on questions about identity and desire. But that’s there too, in sensitively crafted scenes that don’t skimp on reality. Punctuated by some bad choices and an unnerving final act, “Beach Rats” embraces the full spectrum of teen sexuality, even when it’s not exactly alluring.

Read More:Why ‘Beach Rats’ Breakout Harris Dickinson Isn’t Afraid Of Risqué Roles (Or Sex Scenes) — Sundance Springboard

Here are eight indie films that engage with the subject matter in appropriately intimate ways.

"I don't really know what I like..." Neon has unveiled the official full-length trailer for indie drama Beach Rats, the second feature from filmmaker Eliza Hittman, following up her debut It Felt Like Love. This originally premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the Best Director award. Newcomer Harris Dickinson plays Frankie, an aimless youth on the outer edges of Brooklyn, struggling to escape his bleak home life. He spends his summer balancing time between his delinquent group of friends, a potential new girlfriend, and older men he meets online. The cast includes Nicole Flyus, Frank Hakaj, Kate Hodge and Neal Huff. Despite some good reviews, this looks like pretentious art house drivel to me. Here's the full-length trailer (+ poster) for Eliza Hittman's Beach Rats, direct from Neon's YouTube: You can also still watch the first teaser trailer for Beach Rats here, to see even less footage from this.

After her excellent debut It Felt Like Love, one of our most-anticipated films at Sundance this year was Eliza Hittman’s follow-up titled Beach Rats. She delivered on expectations and the Sundance jury also agreed, awarding her Best Director in her U.S Dramatic Features category. Led by newcomer Harris Dickinson, it’s an invigorating, hyper-focused look at sexuality in the outskirts of Brooklyn. The new company Neon quickly picked it up and we have the full trailer today ahead of a late-summer release.

I said in my review, “Burgeoning sexuality is the basis for nearly all coming-of-age films, but with her specific eye, Eliza Hittman makes it feel like we’re watching this genre unfold for the first time. With only two features to her name, she’s captured the experience with a sensuality and intimacy nearly unprecedented in American independent filmmaking. Following 2013’s It Felt Like Love, the...