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NEWS
Nostalgia (Hollis Frampton, 1971).
- Industry experts warn that digital cinema files are not being properly maintained (“You have an entire era of cinema that’s in severe danger of being lost”), emphasizing the importance of amateur preservation efforts like Rarefilmm, recently profiled on Notebook.
- After a caucus week of intra-union meetings, negotiations between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers continued, with their current contract set to expire on July 31. This week’s discussions focused on specific proposals from each of the 13 West Coast locals, starting with the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600.
- Vision du Réel has announced the full program for its 55th edition, running April 12 to 21 in Nyon, Switzerland. The competition slate includes mostly first features.
IN PRODUCTION
Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman, 1960).
- Joe Dante will direct a remake of his mentor Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960), with Corman producing. The production schedule will presumably exceed that of the original, which was famously shot in two days and one night.
- Raoul Peck is at work on The Hands That Held the Knives, a documentary about the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise. “I want to reveal for once,” Peck says, “without holding back, the core stories and real reasons for Haiti’s tragic situation.”
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Janus Films’s new trailer for their digital restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le samouraï (1967) plays like an extended version of the original, reminding us that no one smooths the brim of a fedora like Alain Delon.
- Warner Bros. has released a second trailer for George Miller’s Furiosa (2024), in theaters this May. The appearance of this film, an origin story set in the world of Mad Max, is almost enough to make one glad that we are living through the age of the cinematic universe.
RECOMMENDED READING
Cumbite (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1964).
- “The battle for self-determination will always be fought over the terrain of memory—and cinema is well positioned to be the ideal vehicle for narratives of global remembrance.” In Hammer & Hope, Yasmina Price surveys screen depictions of the Haitian Revolution.
- “The illusion that we have learned from the past has crumbled like so many bombed homes.” For Hazlitt, Sophie Monks Kaufman heeds Jonathan Glazer’s call to “look what we do now,” reflecting on the ongoing genocide in Gaza with the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas.
- “It’s like a living thing and has a mind of its own, and its mood changes daily.” For Filmmaker, Deniz Tortum speaks with Damon Packard about the latter's recent run of AI-rendered shorts, including an irreverent satire of John Carpenter chain-smoking and remote-directing.
- “Irish Wish is a thinly veiled Trojan horse for the conservative agenda, a crypto-fascist work of art cluttered with right-wing dog whistles and dialogue that could have only been written by a malevolently programmed artificial intelligence.” In Vulture, Rachel Handler dismantles Netflix’s latest Lindsay Lohan vehicle.
RECOMMENDED EVENTS
The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo (Margaret Tait, 1955).
- London, April 6: Close-Up Film Centre presents “Together: Overlapping Histories, Friendships & Dialogues,” a program of artist films—including rarities by Gregory Markopoulos and Margaret Tait—in an ongoing series curated by Peter Todd.
- London, April 7 through May 19: LUX presents “Place Setting,” a solo exhibition by Nina Thomas including a film of the same title, which reflects on a Deaf craft community in Stoke-on-Trent.
- Los Angeles, April 10 through 18: The American Cinematheque presents This Is Not a Fiction, a new documentary festival, including appearances by Thom Andersen, James Benning, Barbara Kopple, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, and Jon Bon Jovi.
- New York, April 22: At Film at Lincoln Center, Film Comment presents a double-feature tribute to the late cinematographer Navroze Contractor, including a conversation with his partner, the director Deepa Dhanraj.
RECENTLY ON NOTEBOOK
The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023).
- “Miyazaki isn’t interested in sentimentalizing childhood, but in the way that children rely on their imagination to navigate, understand, and engage with the wider world.” Kim Hew-Low revisits the Studio Ghibli animator’s career through the eyes of a six-year-old.
- In our new Related Images feature, filmmakers invite readers behind the scenes, into their sketchbooks, or otherwise through the looking glass to learn more about their creative processes. For the inaugural entry, Flóra Anna Buda, the animator behind the Palme d’Or–winning short 27 (2023), shares a series of drawings that served as both research and therapy.
- "Gucci called out of the blue.... A few days later we were on a plane to Milan." Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost offer another take on Related Images with behind-the-scenes photos from their documentary short, Who Is Sabato De Sarno? (2024), including a meme-worthy cameo by Ryan Gosling.