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NEWS
Above: Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers (2021).
- The lineup for the 2021 Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring the latest from Pedro Almodóvar, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Pablo Larraín, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, and more. Find the full lineup here.
- The New York Film Festival has announced that this year's Centerpiece Selection will be Jane Campion's Power of the Dog, an adaptation of Thomas Savage's novel starring Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
- New additions to the TIFF roster include Joachim Trier's The Worst Person In The World, Masaaki Yuasa's Inu-Oh, and Ho Wi Ding's Terrorizers.
- A24 has won the rights to Octavia E. Butler's science-fiction novel Parable of the Sower, and Time director Garrett Bradley is set to direct. The novel follows a girl with a unique gift who rises to lead humanity through a near-future apocalypse.
- In response to the devastating announcement that the SFMOMA will be shuttering its film program, Canyon Cinema has published an open letter condemning the museum for holding cinema in such low regard: "How can the story of modern and contemporary art be told without cinema?"
- The sixth episode of MUBI Podcast: Encuentros brings the first season to a close with a warm and affectionate conversation between two legendary actresses from Chile and Argentina. Paulina García and Mercedes Morán, who have both starred in outstanding works of contemporary Latin American cinema, discuss the love and dedication that they've transmitted to their characters and the many transformations that the industry has undergone in recent decades. To listen to this episode and subscribe on your favorite podcast app, click here.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- The official trailer for Paul Schrader's long-awaited The Card Counter. The film stars Oscar Isaac as "an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions."
- The official trailer for Denis Villeneuve's space epic Dune is also here, complete with spaceships, a big worm, and plenty of sand.
- A trailer for Tsai Ming-liang's Days from Grasshopper Films, which arrives in theaters August 13. Read our interview with Tsai and Lee Kang-sheng here.
- A24's official trailer for Valdimar Jóhannsson's Lamb gives us a closer look at the sinister lamb-headed child that appears in the farm of a childless couple.
- A trailer for Ted Fendt's Outside Noise, which recently won a Special Mention of the Grand Prix at this year's FIDMarseille. Described as "an insomniac’s hang out film," Outside Noise is about two tired friends in limbo who wander across Berlin and Vienna.
- Edko Films has released a trailer for Fruit Chan's Coffin Homes. As the title suggests, the film is a black comedy horror that satirizes Hong Kong's housing problems. In a statement, Chan states: "Hong Kong’s property prices are so expensive that they are out of reach to most people. [...] Some citizens are so desperate that they would rather buy a haunted apartment at an affordable price and share a home with a ghost than not owning one."
- The latest screening series from Ecstatic Static, entitled W,O,R,D,S, explores "eight films of linguistic games, acoustic possibilities, literary conditioning, syllabic misunderstanding, sonic interpretations and other treatments of words." It features films by Erica Sheu, Anna Thew, Abigail Child, and more.
- The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has announced its inaugural programs, including retrospectives of films by Haile Gerima, Jane Campion, and Hayao Miyazaki, and a celebration of Anna May Wong's legacy.
- You can now find the lineup for the 15th edition of Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film online. An online and in-person hybrid event, the festival will take place from August 20 to September 2, featuring films by Takashi Miike, Nobuhiko Obayashi, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
- We highly recommend Kino Lorber's newly released two-disc blu-ray Ken Jacobs Collection, which includes 13 films by Jacobs spanning from 1955 to 2021.
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: Bill Gunn and Duane Jones on the set of Ganja & Hess (1973). Image courtesy of Tom Cummings and Artists Space.
- Yasmina Price writes on "Till They Listen: Bill Gunn Directs America", a solo exhibition at New York’s Artists Space that encapsulates the richness of the multi-hyphenate artist's oeuvre.
- "Every aspect of it defies what we know about the world, about life, about existence." From Vulture, the oral history of the 1994 Martin Short comedy Clifford that you didn't know you needed.
- Jordan Cronk interviews Miguel Gomes & Maureen Fazendeiro, whose new film The Tsugua Diaries is an "anti-lockdown diary" rooted in improvisation.
- In her essay on Jacques Deray’s La piscine, Jessica Kiang considers the film's "coolly enigmatic longevity" which has set it apart from other films of the era.
- In light of theaters re-opening and the rise in concurrent home releases, Indiewire has published a helpful article on how each major Hollywood studio's theatrical window works, from Universal to Sony and Lionsgate.
- Sushmita Pathak of NPR investigates the single-screen cinemas of India and their struggle to stay open during the pandemic.
- In an interview with FIDMarseille, Ted Fendt discusses the making of his new film Outside Noise, which takes place in Berlin and Vienna.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- Check out all of our Cannes 2021 coverage, as well as correspondent Leonardo Goi's top 10 films of the festival, here.
- Théo Court introduces his film White on White, which is exclusively showing on MUBI in many countries in the series Debuts.
- Magnus von Horn's Sweat is playing exclusively on MUBI in the series The New Auteurs. For his Five inspirations, Magnus von Horn shares the music, paintings, theories and locations that shaped his approach to "looking for beauty in the ugly."
- Phil Christman reflects on a recent pandemic-inspired viewing of Celine and Julie Go Boating, this time finding that it comes close to being a horror film.
- Doug Dibbern similarly ruminates on returning to theatrical moviegoing in New York City after theaters were closed for a year.
- The latest entry in the Deuce Notebook is by Chris Poggiali of Temple of Schlock, who takes us on a tour of the history of Japanese samurai films in New York City.
EXTRAS
- A mysterious poster for Jordan Peele's upcoming horror film Nope, starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun.
- For those who don't want to wear Rohmer Guy button-ups this summer, might we suggest Screen Slate's Mann Boy shirt, designed by Hanna Edizel?
