Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.
NEWS
The Little Mermaid (John Musker and Ron Clements, 1989).
- A generative AI start-up has been accused of stealing the voices of actors for its subscription service.
- IATSE expects to schedule additional days of bargaining with AMPTP in June, but has vowed not to extend its contract past July 31.
- With INCAA defunded by Argentine president Javier Milei, Ventana Sur is in talks to relocate from Buenos Aires to Uruguay for its sixteenth edition.
- As the Italian film industry continues to wait on a divided government to make production tax credits available, anticipating modest cuts, a new law in the Czech Parliament would more than double the existing cap on their incentives. Meanwhile, industry insiders in Poland urge a newly elected government to increase their rebate and a new incentive in Malta puts the squeeze on the island’s production resources.
CANNES
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024).
- Donald Trump’s presidential campaign plans to file a lawsuit against Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, whose Cannes premiere on Monday was well received. Sales of the film may depend on placating one of its investors, a friend and supporter of Trump’s who was reportedly outraged by the cut of the film he previewed.
- After fleeing Iran on foot to avoid an eight-year prison sentence and flogging, Mohammad Rasoulof has found shelter in Germany. He will be in attendance at the Cannes premiere of his latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, on Friday.
IN PRODUCTION
- Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, and Tom Waits will star in Jim Jarmusch’s Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, although it is not yet clear who in which role.
- Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, and Zach Galifianakis will star in Olivier Assayas’s The Wizard of the Kremlin, a political thriller co-written by Emmanuel Carrère.
- Claire Simon is developing a documentary about the French autofiction great Annie Ernaux, tentatively titled You Talk of Ourselves.
- Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons will again work with Yorgos Lanthimos in his next project, Bugonia, an alien conspiracy drama.
- Paul Schrader’s Non Compos Mentis, a noir about “sexual obsession,” is scheduled to start shooting this fall.
REMEMBERING
9 to 5 (Colin Higgins, 1980).
- Dabney Coleman has died at 92. The American actor is remembered for his excellent evocation of the imperious boss in such films as 9 to 5 (1980), Tootsie (1982), Clifford (1994), You’ve Got Mail (1998), and so many more.
- Jan A. P. Kaczmarek has died at 71. The Polish composer received an Oscar for scoring Finding Neverland (2004). His many credits also include Aimée & Jaguar (1999), Unfaithful (2002), and The Visitor (2007).
- Jean-Marie Lavalou has died at 76. The French technician and inventor co-created the Louma Crane, the first remote-controlled camera system used in filmmaking.
- Peter Caranicas has died at 80. The American journalist was a longtime editor at Variety.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Drift (Helena Wittmann, 2017).
- Futura Resistenza has released Drift, an album by Nika Son expanding on her score for Helena Wittmann’s 2017 film of the same name.
RECOMMENDED READING
Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2006).
- “ I’m such a huge fan of all three of your films and the way that you did some crazy shit with other people’s money back then.” Interview brings together Jane Schoenbrun and Richard Kelly, auteurs of the American suburbs.
- “Throughout the 1960s, Whitehead demonstrated an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time.” On his Substack, Dan Fox writes about Peter Whitehead, the counterculture documentarian.
- “The tape on the floor, meant to mimic actors’ marks, suggests both absent bodies and a crime scene.” For the London Review of Books, Brian Dillon reviews “Dreams Have No Titles,” Zineb Sedira’s recent exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery.
RECOMMENDED EVENTS
Free Fall (György Pálfi, 2014).
- New York, May 31 through June 6: BAM presents “I Will Not Be Your Friend,” a retrospective of the Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi.
- Berlin, June 1 through 30: Arsenal presents “Animal, Mineral, Vegetable,” a program of 30 films that foreground nature and the non-human animal as subjects.
- Chicago, June 1, 2024, through March 2, 2025: The Museum of Contemporary Art presents “Arthur Jafa: Works from the MCA Collection,” surveying the artists work in video, photography, and sculpture over the last ten years.
RECENTLY ON NOTEBOOK
Leila and the Wolves (Heiny Srour, 1984).
- “Leila and the Wolves depicts domestic space and activities not as the rearguard of the anti-colonial struggle, but as its backbone.” Celluloid Liberation Front considers Heiny Srour’s multi-temporal, anti-narrative historical epic.
- Haruo Takino “is probably best known for two panoramic paintings of the animals of Noah’s Ark and a parade of dinosaurs, both of which are very popular jigsaw puzzle subjects.” Adrian Curry surveys the creative collaboration that produced three stunning posters for the films of Francis Ford Coppola.
- “Course he wasn’t drinkin’ when we went down there or we woulda never left. But once he started...then that was it.” Rachel Walden shares the family lore behind her short film Lemon Tree (2023).
- “Writing on Hong’s work has all but calcified into a Dictionary of Received Ideas.” Lawrence Garcia contributes a major piece of analysis on Hong Sang-soo’s late period.
- “The most pressing questions I heard on my way to Cannes this year didn’t concern the festival lineups but events that seemed to transcend them.” Leonardo Goi considers the political implications of the films in a festival content to sit on the fence.
WISH LIST
- A24’s handsome editions of contemporary screenplays are now distributed by Mack Books.
EXTRAS
- “I guess I just like movies.” In 1947, a San Francisco youth ran away from home to spend a week at the cinema. This is his story.