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NEWS
Above: Killers of the Flower Moon (2021)
- From Osage News, the first official image from Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon, featuring Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Following the release of his series The Underground Railroad, Barry Jenkins has also released The Gaze, a 50-minute non-narrative video piece that captures the show's background actors in moments of stillness. The film challenges the notion of the "white gaze" by pursuing what Jenkins refers to as "the Black gaze; or the gaze distilled."
- Shudder has released an official trailer for George A. Romero's The Amusement Park, a restoration of the long-lost 1973 film. Originally a commissioned work by the Lutheran Society, The Amusement Park was shelved for its terrifying depiction of elder abuse. The film will premiere on Shudder on June 8.
- Over at Ecstatic Static, you can now watch five exhilarating, colorful films by experimental filmmaker Jodie Mack until May 25.
- Founded by filmmaker Sophy Romvari, the newly launched Exquisite Shorts Program aims to screen short films selected by filmmakers, for filmmakers. The first short film will be selected by Isabel Sandoval.
- From the Hong Kong Film Archive, a deeper look into the intensive and inspired 4K restoration process of King Hu's Valiant Ones.
- With the support of Chanel, Sofia Coppola has directed a new short film for the New York City Ballet's 2021 Spring Gala.
- From director Pablo Larraín, executive producer J.J. Abrams, and writer Stephen King, comes the miniseries adaptation of King's novel Lisey's Story. The series follows a widow stalked by obsessive fans of her late novelist husband's unpublished works.
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: Isabella Rossellini by Terry Tsiolis.
- In a new conversation between Angelica Jade Bastién and Isabella Rossellini for Harper's Bazaar, Rossellini reflects on gendered ideas about aging and beauty, working with David Lynch and Guy Maddin, her Zoom film club meetings, and the surprise of a recent pandemic romance.
- In his review of Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple, Justin Chang praises the film as one of this year's best, and questions its treatment by distributor Netflix as an afterthought.
- Film Comment has launched the Film Comment Letter, a free weekly newsletter that delivers original film criticism to subscribers' inboxes every Thursday before becoming available on Film Comment's website the following Monday. This week's Letter entries include critic Molly Haskell on her moviegoing memories and Sheila O'Malley on Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop.
Above: The Story of a Three Day Pass (1968)
- Yasmina Price's essay on Melvin Van Peebles’ newly restored feature debut The Story of a Three Day Pass (1968) examines the film's multifaceted approach to "the problems of connection, access, and shared knowledge."
- Laurent Kretzschmar and Srikanth Srinivasan have graciously started publishing translations of every article written by critic Serge Daney while covering the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for Libération. This includes a cheeky introduction by Daney that contains a "Cannes glossary," defining terms like "out of competition" and "the masses."
- For Reverse Shot, Caitlin Quinlan interviews Alice Diop, whose film We (Nous) is playing at this year's edition of New Directors/New Films.
- In a republished 1968 interview with Satyajit Ray from Film Comment, Ray discusses his unique method of casting, rehearsing with, and directing non-actors.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- In an interview with Cheryl Dunye by KQED from March, Dunye discusses her idea of the "Dunye-mentary," her approach to directing an episode of Lovecraft Country, and the influence of Oakland history on her filmmaking.
- For the latest Film Comment podcast, editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute talk about all things Melvin Van Peebles with The Inheritance filmmaker Ephraim Asili, and writer and film editor Blair McClendon.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- A closer look at MUBI's first planned physical movie theatre in Mexico City, designed by architecture practice Armature Globale in Milan.
- The newest Notebook Primer is Megan Feeney's overview of anti-fascist Hollywood films made during World War II.
- Sergei Loznitsa shares five inspirations behind his film State Funeral. The film is now showing at Film Forum in New York and Laemmle's Royal in Los Angeles.
- Valentyn Vasyanovych introduces his film Atlantis, which is exclusively showing on MUBI in many countries in the series Viewfinder.
- In his introduction to the video investigations of Forensic Architecture, Emerson Goo considers how these projects function as art.
- Ela Bittencourt interviews Jessica Beshir, who discusses the making of her film Faya Dayi in her father's native country of Ethiopia.
EXTRAS
- FLIM is an expansive database of screenshots, with a search engine you can use to find high-definition images based on film title, director, DOP, actor, topic, and more.