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NEWS
- The 49th annual New Directors/New Films (ND/NF) has been rescheduled from March to December 9-20, with films slated to premiere in the Film at Lincoln Center Virtual Cinema. The line-up includes Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s The Cloud in Her Room, Maya Da-Rin's The Fever, and Alexander Nanau’s Collective.
- Lynne Ramsay, who last directed You Were Never Really Here, will be adapting Steven King's psychological horror novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, about a young girl who becomes lost in the woods.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Abel Ferrara's new documentary, Sportin' Life, which premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival in August, has gone an unusual premiere route, streaming first through Indiewire (currently unavailable), and now at The Film Stage. Shot by Sean Price Willaims, the documentary follows Ferrara as he promotes Siberia with Willem Dafoe at Berlinale, then quarantines in Rome with his wife and daughter.
- Janus Films has released a trailer for their highly anticipated touring retrospective of seven 4K restorations of Wong Kar-wai's films. The retrospective, which begins on November 25 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York, includes Chungking Express, As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, The Hand, and In the Mood For Love.
- A trailer for Kiyoshi Kurosawa's unique take on the travelogue and reality television, To the Ends of the Earth. Read our review of the film, and interview with Kurosawa.
- Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Kornél Mundruczó's Pieces of a Woman stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf as a couple faced with devastating loss. The film will be available on Netflix in January of 2021. In the meantime, read our review of the film from its premiere at the Venice Film Festival here.
- Let Them All Talk, Steven Soderbergh's latest comedy, stars Meryl Streep as an author who embarks on a trip with her friends and nephew as she starts a new manuscript. The film will be released on HBO Max on December 10.
- The official teaser for Zack Snyder's Justice League: Director's Cut, which, according to Snyder, contains over two-and-a-half hours of previously unseen footage.
- Francis Ford Coppola also has an ambitious director's cut planned: With a new beginning and ending, Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone promises "an entirely new experience" for fans this December.
- On Vimeo, Filmmuseum München presents a retrospective of the rarely seen early 8mm and 16mm films by German filmmaker Werner Schroeter (whose film Malina is currently playing on MUBI in the Rediscovered series.).
- The retro, surreal music video for Oneohtrix Point Never's "Lost But Never Alone" reunites the Uncut Gems composer with the Safdie brothers.
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open (2019).
- For Native American Heritage Month, director and programmer Adam Piron explores the question, "What is an Indigenous Cinema?"
- “This is nothing new, people from the West Indies and our influence. That’s where we come from: rebel country.” With critic Ashley Clark, Steve McQueen discusses Britain's Caribbean heritage and the process of understanding himself through his anthology film, Small Axe.
- In a sprawling and meditative profile with GQ, Icon of the Year George Clooney reflects on his brush with death in 2018, spending more time with his wife Amal Clooney, and the "ability to be still" as an actor.
- Two essential translations of critical texts: Over at The Seventh Art, Srikanth Srinivasan continues his translations of Luc Moullet’s Fritz Lang, and the Serge Daney blog has also released a translation of Daney's review of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- In conjunction with MUBI's series Éric Rohmer: Comedies and Proverbs, Lawrence Garcia provides a survey of the faces that inhabit and define the six films of Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs.
- For our latest One Shot, Theresa Wang explores the neon-lit corridor in The River, Tsai Ming-liang's rhythmic portrait of urban malaise. The film is showing until December 13, 2020 in the US and Canada in the series Double Bill: Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng.
- In her reflection on Carlo Mirabella-Davis' Swallow, Elizabeth Horkley considers the reproductive ramifications of Swallow (now showing exclusively on MUBI in many countries) alongside Rosemary's Baby and The Invisible Man.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum writes on the juxtaposition of clarity and mystery in John Gianvito's Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind, currently showing until December 2, 2020 in the Rediscovered series.
EXTRAS
- In celebration of Martin Scorsese's birthday this week, we return to Bong Joon-ho's heartwarming tribute to Scorsese from this year's Academy Awards.