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NEWS
King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard, 1987).
- Jean-Luc Godard, groundbreaking French-Swiss filmmaker across six decades, died last week at age 91. In the week since, a number of tributes have been shared: among them, Blair McClendon in n+1, J. Hoberman in The Nation, Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, and Richard Hell in Screen Slate. Alternatively, you can find a 2002 essay on Godard by filmmaker and theorist Peter Wollen on Verso's blog, watch a 1988 conversation between Godard and critic Serge Daney, or read this list Godard contributed to the British film journal Afterimage in 1970.
- Shadow and Act founder Tambay Obenson is fundraising to launch Akoroko, a new platform devoted to African film and television. The platform intends to combine film journalism with “consultation, cataloging, and curated film streaming.”
- Two posters (below) for the 61st New York Film Festival feature photographs taken by Nan Goldin. Goldin is the subject of the festival's Centerpiece selection, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a new documentary by Laura Poitras.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Winner of the People's Choice Award at TIFF, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans has an official trailer.
- A trailer has been released for Lin Jing-Jie's The King of Wuxia, a new documentary about legendary Taiwanese filmmaker King Hu. The film features talking-head contributions from John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, and others.
- Please Baby Please, a 1950s-set LGBT musical thriller from cult filmmaker Amanda Kramer, premiered earlier this year at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Music Box Films has shared a trailer ahead of its US theatrical release.
RECOMMENDED READING
Bad Girls Go To Hell (Doris Wishman, 1965).
- “Her films overflow with the strangeness and plasticity of sexed and gendered bodies, simmering with promises of corporeal liberation and its attendant dangers.” To mark the publication of a new collection of essays about the filmmaker, Elena Gorfinkel writes about Doris Wishman for Artforum.
- When movies lose their appeal with the public, turn into cult objects or just fall out of print on home video, what is left of the work?” In the LA Times, Dave Schilling reports on “the detritus of show business,” crew jackets, and movie set memorabilia.
- In Reverse Shot, Matilda Hague talks with Courtney Stephens about Terra Femme, a film and live performance focused on “archival amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century.”
- “You cannot control your life, it’s not possible. You can’t control the future, but you can open yourself up to chance and to chaos. Life is better with surprises.” For Spike, Dean Kissick writes at considerable length on Nathan Fielder’s new series The Rehearsal.
American Honey (Andrea Arnold, 2016).
- In the London Review of Books, David Trotter pens an in-depth essay on Andrea Arnold, “a director of films about young working-class women determined to get some joy out of a life that has been shaped by the needs and desires of others.”
- For Film Comment, Julian Ross eulogizes the Japanese experimental filmmaker Takahiko Iimura, whose “works will be remembered as landmarks in Japanese experimental film and video, especially for the imaginative ways in which they redefined cinema through performance and installation.”
- In 4Columns, Beatrice Loayza writes about “Goblin-grinned actor-writer-director” Mathieu Amalric, whose new film as director, Hold Me Tight, is “marked by a fascination with the encounter between reality and fantasy.”
- “Gibney started to get notes from the streamers…‘Our algorithm states that by minute 10 you should do X, Y or Z.’” For Hollywood Reporter, Mia Galuppo and Katie Kilkenny spoke to various high-profile documentary industry figures about the commercial and creative state of the streaming landscape.
RECOMMENDED FESTIVAL COVERAGE
Petit Mai (Betzy Bromberg, 1977).
- We've been enjoying TIFF dispatches from Vikram Murthi, who has been filing them for Downtime, and from Vadim Rizov, who has been reporting for Filmmaker Magazine.
- Wendy Ide also shared her overall highlights from TIFF in the Guardian, opening by stating that it was “a joy to be back among a crowd that is so uninhibited in its passion, so knowledgeable and curious about cinema.”
- Reaching far and wide across the lineup, Cinema Scope has gathered their annual collection of TIFF coverage here.
- Across the Atlantic, Kathryn Siegel interviews Betzy Bromberg—the subject of a retrospective at Open City Documentary Festival—for Another Gaze.
RECOMMENDED EVENTS
Ask Any Buddy (Elizabeth Purchell, 2020).
- New York: Accompanying a five-day run of Elizabeth Purchell’s documentary Ask Any Buddy (2020), Anthology Film Archives presents “a survey of the all-male adult cinema genre” from October 20 to 25.
- London: Commemorating 50 years of experimental filmmaking by the British artist, “John Smith: Introspective” is running in various venues from October 1 to December 31. His work is also currently showing on MUBI.
- Sydney and Melbourne: Independent screening collective Static Vision has announced the program for Metamorphoses, “a weekend-long exploration of evolution, transformation and shifting worlds.” Running from September 29 to October 3 in Sydney, then October 20 to 23 in Melbourne, the series includes international premieres of Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker, Ethan Eng’s Therapy Dogs, and Gaspar Noé’s Lux Aeterna.
- Los Angeles: Mezzanine has announced a tribute to Serge Daney, tied to the English-language translation of The Cinema House and the World. On October 16, a screening of Nicholas Ray's We Won't Go Home Again and Straub-Huillet's En râchachant will be introduced by the book's translator, Christine Pichini.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
But I'm a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999).
- A new soundtrack mix from Florence Scott-Anderson offers an ode to teenage summers, pulling snippets of music from Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Jamie Babbit's But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer (2009), and much more.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now (Fox Maxy, 2022).
- First up is our series of dispatches from TIFF, including Daniel Kasman's thoughts on Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans and Wavelengths works from Sharon Lockhart, Tacita Dean, and Fox Maxy. Kasman also covers new Canadian features, Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, and Laura Poitras’s All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Chloe Lizotte writes on new films by Moyra Davey, Daniel Goldhaber, and Kurt Walker.
- Leonardo Goi also wrapped up his Venice coverage, writing first on Sergei Loznitsa’s The Kiev Trial, Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, and Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, and next on Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, and Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen.
- Doug Dibbern reflects on two films from the Locarno Film Festival, Helena Wittmann’s Human Flowers of Flesh and Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s Matter Out of Place, which reminded him “how much your environment shapes your aesthetic experience.”
Du côté d'Orouët (Jacques Rozier, 1971).
- “Time is an all too multifaceted entity, and Rozier latches onto its various manifestations, its speediness, its lumpiness, its strange, unpredictable vacillation between ephemeral moments and molasses-like boredom.” Patrick Preziosi surveys the summer focused films of Jacques Rozier, a series that he dubs the “Vacationscapes.”
- In a comprehensive essay, Phuong Le analyzes Helga Reidemeister’s “dialogical approach to documentary filmmaking,” the subject of a current Another Screen streaming series.
- Adrian Curry provides a new edition of his column rounding up the best in movie posters, sharing the most popular pieces from his “Movie Poster of the Day” Instagram over the last six months.
- Oliver Sim, the star and co-writer of Yann Gonzalez's new short film Hideous, talks to MUBI in a video interview recorded on-site at London’s Castle Cinema.
- Lastly, Ricky D’Ambrose shares five inspirations for The Cathedral, now showing in select countries on MUBI, and Ainhoa Rodríguez offers an introduction for Destello bravío, now showing in most countries on MUBI.
EXTRAS
- Two previously unreleased film soundtracks, one for Patrick Chaput’s La bête noire (1983) and the other for Robert Benayoun’s Paris n'existe pas (1969), both composed by the Parisian musician Jean-Claude Vannier, are now available to pre-order from Finders Keepers records.
- New UK Blu-ray label Radiance launched last week with an interesting selection of first titles, as well as a now sold-out three-year subscription package costing £1600.