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NEWS
Above: The Hour of the Furnace by Fernando Solanas.
- Argentinian filmmaker Fernando Solanas, best known for his 1968 documentary The Hour of the Furnace and his manifesto "Toward a Third Cinema" (written with Octavio Getino, a fellow member of the Grupo Cine Liberación), has died.
- Celine Sciamma has started filming her follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film, entitled Petite Maman, will be filmed by regular collaborator Claire Mathon and will focus on the childhood of two eight-year old kids.
- Although her adaptation of Denis Johnson's Stars at Noon has been delayed, Claire Denis will be reteaming with Juliette Binoche and Bastards star Vincent Lindon for a still-untitled film.
- Sean Baker has also confirmed that his "secret movie" called Red Rocket, starring Simon Rex (of the Scary Movie franchise), will complete shooting this month.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Starting on November 16, JR and Alice Rohrwacher's Omelia Contadina will be online for free via the Cineteca di Bologna, following its premiere at the Biennale. The film, made with the farmers of the Alfina Plateau, is a "a funeral" for the destruction of the landscape, as well as a "hymn of hope dedicated to all those who keep us alive day after day, producing the food we eat."
- The official trailer for Steve McQueen's five film anthology Small Axe, which premieres on BBC and Amazon Prime this month. Read our reviews for three of the five films, Mangrove, Red, White, and Blue, and Lovers Rock.
- Factory25's trailer for Tyler Taormina's debut feature Ham on Rye, about a bizarre and fateful coming-of-age ritual in the suburbs. Read our review of the film from the 2019 Locarno Film Festival here.
- "Every moment we have experienced can be interesting. Even its banality. The wind, the rain, the rhythm it creates; the metal hitting concrete." From Vancouver's Polygon Gallery, October Rumbles, a meditative new short by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: Mank by David Fincher.
- Ahead of the Netflix release of David Fincher's Mank, Farran Smith Nehme provides an overview of Herman Mankiewicz's contributions to Hollywood's Golden Age, and the myths of his career that emerge in Fincher's film.
- "...I became a critic. A critic who loves women who talk back, who fight back, who walk alone — women who own their power and ferociously, unapologetically, own the screen." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times reflects on her relationship to watching actresses become action stars onscreen.
- Brian Eno is releasing a new compilation album, Brian Eno (Film Music, 1976-2020). In a profile with the New York Times, Eno discusses walking around with headphones on, the soundtrack for Juliet of the Spirits, and the process of composing music for films.
- Non-Fiction, a print journal from the Open City Documentary Festival, has announced its second issue, which focuses on the theme of "network." Featuring writings by filmmakers including Jessica Dunn Rovinelli and Shireen Seno, the journal is available for pre-order now.
- Critic Bilge Ebiri remembers Sean Connery's ability to deliver the "perfect kiss-off," making dry wisecracks a mainstay in genre cinema.
- For Reverse Shot, Chloe Lizotte explores the "PR gloss" encouraged by Quibi's short-form content, and, by comparison, the experimental subversiveness of films like Zia Anger's My First Film and James N. Kienitz's Common Carrier.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- Steffanie Ling examines the political and personal relationships that inhabit the early films of Kira Muratova, whose film Long Farewells (1971) is showing November 5 - December 4, 2020 in the United States and Canada.
- Olaf Möller reports on this year's editions of Il Cinema Ritrovato and Venice Film Festival.
- Jeremy Carr's latest Notebook Primer is on the distinctive filmography of Éric Rohmer, who placed the nuanced behavior of the individual at the fore of all his work.
- For the Current Debate, Leonardo Goi asks if moviegoing as we knew it will ever come back after ongoing cinema closures and postponed productions.
- "It’s our knowledge of what happened in the years to come which makes that historical period terrifyingly present." Karolis Kaupini introduces his film Nova Lituania, which is exclusively showing November 9 - December 8, 2020 in the Debuts series.