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A few weeks ago, as The Sweet East started gracing theatres across the States, Reverse Shot ran a sprawling conversation between critic K. Austin Collins and critic-turned-screenwriter Nick Pinkerton. It’s a delightful exchange I can’t recommend enough, both for all it has to uncover about Sean Price Williams’ film––which Pinkerton wrote and which, in my book, was one of last year’s finest––but also for what it sponges of our depressingly shortsighted, quid-pro-quo relationship with the films we watch, what we expect to receive in return for the time we invest in them. “If I wanted to say something,” Pinkerton reflects on the okay-but-what’s-the-message response Sweet East routinely encountered in the months since its Cannes premiere, “I would open my mouth and the words would come out. That’s not what one makes a movie for. You make a movie to go beyond the expression of simple concepts.

You don’t need to have lived in the proverbial middle of nowhere to understand the kind of terror Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Soul Eater mines from the fictional Roquenoix. As shot by Simon Roca, this remote hamlet in northeastern France isn’t a ghost town so much as a burial ground where humans and buildings alike are waiting to rot. A grandiose sanatorium once towered over the tree-shrouded hills, bringing in enough cash and tourists to fill the village’s coffers. But when a motorway was built across the valley, the tourists disappeared, the sanatorium was abandoned; and the few who stayed behind were left to wrestle with an ancestral legend and a series of murders that may or may not be connected with it.

The single most terrifying thing in The Soul Eater isn’t the titular devourer, but that spectral, lifeless town where its victims are stranded.

Ariane Louis-Seize’s “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” has picked up the director’s award at Venice Days.

“It bravely addresses crucial themes such as depression, mental health, euthanasia and neurodiversity. Nevertheless, it is able to do so with a light-hearted feel, which makes the film radical and courageous,” noted the jury, composed of European cinephiles from the 27 Times Cinema program and led by Portugal’s João Pedro Rodrigues, behind “The Ornithologist” and “Will-o’-the-Wisp.”

“While the film has unique tone and style, it joyfully reaches a wider audience thanks to its tenderness and emotional engagement,” they added, praising Louis-Seize’s “strong directorial vision.”

In the film, a young vampire has a problem: she is too sensitive to kill. When her parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha meets Paul, a teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers.

It’s produced by...

Fairytales and fire stations merge in the new film from João Pedro Rodrigues.

Few filmmakers can count themselves as an ornithologist — or expert on birds — and a director, but Portuguese filmmaker Rodrigues is both. Now, he’s directed his first narrative feature since 2016’s “The Ornithologist” with the musical fantasy “Will O’ the Wisp.” The homoerotic, full-frontal-filled gay musical — Rodrigues himself, while also being a bird expert and filmmaker, is also openly gay — premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight last May before wending its way around the festival circuit. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, via here or the link below.

In “Will O’ the Wisp,” His Royal Highness Alfredo (Mauro Costa) is a king without a crown and also on a death bed, from which he’s taken back to distant memories from his youth, a time when he dreamed of becoming a fireman. In this chapter of his life,...

Following 2016’s The Ornithologist, it’s been quite a wait for the next feature from João Pedro Rodrigues. It finally arrived at last year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight with Will-o’-the-Wisp, a delightfully sexual and imaginative queer firefighter musical fantasy. Now set for a May 26 release beginning at IFC Center, featuring the director in person and screening with his 2019 short Potemkin Steps, the new U.S. trailer has arrived from Strand Releasing.

Here’s the synopsis: “On his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo, king without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories and the time he dreamt of becoming a fireman. The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men immersed in love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.”

“I absolutely wanted to make a comedy,” said the director. “I’d already...

The French filmmaking duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo caught international attention with their debut feature, the brutal home invasion story Inside, in 2007. Since then, Maury and Bustillo have continued working in the horror genre, making the films Livid, Among the Living, Leatherface (a prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Kandisha, and The Deep House. Now Maury has taken to Instagram to announce that they have officially started production on their seventh feature, an adaptation of the Alexis Laipsker novel The Soul Eater (a.k.a. Le mangeur d’âmes). Laipsker also celebrated the start of production, tweeting out a promotional image that reveals The Soul Eater stars Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach), Paul Hamy (The Ornithologist), and Sandrine Bonnaire (Women at War). You can take a look at that image at the bottom of this article.

Maury shared an image of a clapperboard that reveals the cinematographer on The Soul Eater is Simon Roca,...

While the police force faces a massive task of image rehabilitation on screen, these are unexpectedly rich times at the movies for anyone with a firefighter fetish. After an unsurprisingly long wait for one film featuring a team of strapping laddermen in sensual dance formations, two have come along at once. Taking the queer emergency service of “Titane” to a lighter, sweeter, more playful and more pornographic place, João Pedro Rodrigues’ delicious one-off “Will-o’-the-Wisp” lives up to the flighty, elusive promise of its title, teasing its viewers in more ways than one: with a titillating parade of bare male bodies in balletic motion, and with hints of thematic import beyond that leading erotic spectacle.

Climate-change anxiety, republican politics and colonialist history are all woven into this shoestring-budgeted lo-fi sci-fi musical romance, despite a scant 67-minute runtime that scarcely has room for half its fizzing, flung-about ideas. Still, Rodrigues...

Portuguese helmer João Pedro Rodrigues returned to Cannes this year with his new film “Will-o’-the-Wisp” (“Fogo Fátuo”), which screened in Directors’ Fortnight and is his first feature since the well-received 2016 madcap journey of self-discovery, “The Ornithologist.”

The film begins in 2069, with Prince Alfredo on his deathbed, who begins to reminisce about his childhood spent in the King’s Pine Grove in Leiria, near Lisbon, which was devastated in the 2017 forest fires. Behind him we see Jose Conrado Roza’s enigmatic 18th century painting “The Wedding Masquerade,” featuring exotic, dwarfish figures with black skin and a character suffering from a skin disease, at a wedding ceremony.

After the forest fire the young Alfredo decides to join the volunteer fire brigade where he falls in love with a Black fireman, Afonso.

Rodrigues calls the film a “musical fantasy.” The homoerotically charged film establishes metaphorical links between the tall erect pine trees and the male member,...

Six years after his evocative character study The Ornithologist, Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues is returning with a new feature. The 67-minute Will-o’-the-Wisp will premiere tomorrow in Directors’ Fortnight and follows a royal highness who, on his deathbed, recalls distant memories of his youth when he dreamt of becoming a fireman.

“The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo,” the logline reads, hitting at another sexually charged odyssey from Rodrigues. Ahead of the premiere, we’re delighted to exclusively debut the first trailer.

“I absolutely wanted to make a comedy,” said the director. “I’d already approached the genre with To Die Like a Man. Comedy is the most difficult genre to do successfully, and it is a genre to which I am greatly attracted.

Films Boutique has acquired four films set to world premiere at Cannes, including Albert Serra (“The Death of Louis Xiv”)’s “Pacifiction” which will compete in the 75th edition’s Official Selection.

The Berlin-based international sales banner has also acquired rising Morrocan helmer Maryam Touzani (“Adam”)’s “The Blue Caftan” and Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante Meza’s “Domingo and the Mist” which will both play in Un Certain Regard; as well as Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues (“The Ornithologist”)’s “Will-o’-The-Wisp,” set for Directors’ Fortnight.

“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. While investigating on a mysterious submarine, he navigates the high end ’establishment,’ and mingles with locals in underground venues.

Serra was last in Cannes with his 2019 feature film “Liberté” which won the jury prize at Un Certain Regard.”‘Pacifiction’ is a...

The Cannes official competition lineup didn’t exactly see a surge in the number of female filmmakers represented. Enter Quinzaine, a.k.a. Director’s Fortnight, the beloved sidebar of the festival this year kicking off May 18. The lineup of titles includes 11 films directed by women, including Mia Hansen-Løve’s “One Fine Morning,” a romance starring Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupaud; the new film from “Disorder” director Alice Winocour, “Paris Memories”; the feature directing debut of actor Charlotte Le Bon, “Falcon Lake”; and more.

This year’s lineup also includes new works from genre filmmakers: Alex Garland’s “Men,” releasing stateside May 20 from A24, will premiere as a Special Screening of the festival. Plus, there’s British director Mark Jenkin’s anticipated experimental horror film “Enys Men.” Paul Mescal stars in the psychological thriller “God’s Creatures,” directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, who directed the 2015 Venice hit “The Fits.

Irish documentarian Mark Cousins is in a jovial mood. He has two films in Cannes and the first one debuted on opening day, “The Story of Film: A New Generation.” It’s a wide-ranging update to his 15-hour film-school staple “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” (the new one is a slimmer two hours and 20 minutes). Cannes director Thierry Fremaux felt that Cousins’ new film could provide a welcome transition for moviegoers as the festival returned after two years. Indeed, reviews are raves and sales agent Dogwoof is fielding offers.

“Lockdown happened,” said Cousins on Zoom from his home office in Edinburgh just before the festival. “A lot of us had more thinking time and creative time. So I made three films.” His portrait of radical British producer, “The Storms of Jeremy Thomas,” will play in Cannes Classics. The third is a personal documentary based on his 2018 history of the visual world,...

Irish documentarian Mark Cousins is in a jovial mood. He has two films in Cannes and the first one debuted on opening day, “The Story of Film: A New Generation.” It’s a wide-ranging update to his 15-hour film-school staple “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” (the new one is a slimmer two hours and 20 minutes). Cannes director Thierry Fremaux felt that Cousins’ new film could provide a welcome transition for moviegoers as the festival returned after two years. Indeed, reviews are raves and sales agent Dogwoof is fielding offers.

“Lockdown happened,” said Cousins on Zoom from his home office in Edinburgh just before the festival. “A lot of us had more thinking time and creative time. So I made three films.” His portrait of radical British producer, “The Storms of Jeremy Thomas,” will play in Cannes Classics. The third is a personal documentary based on his 2018 history of the visual world,...

Even with all the havoc the coronavirus wreaked in the world, cinema could not be stopped, so why should Mark Cousins, the solicitous Irish critic-cum-tour guide whose 15-hour “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” was but a tip-of-the-iceberg survey of the medium’s infinite possibilities?

Making the most of his time in lockdown, Cousins compiled an appendix/capper to that marathon series, delivering “The Story of Film: A New Generation” on opening day of the Cannes Film Festival. This latest installment (doubtful the last) is less focused on where the medium’s been than on where it’s headed, focusing mostly on 21st-century examples, from Attenberg to Zama, that point the way forward.

At two hours and 40 minutes, it’s a longer epilogue than audiences needed perhaps, but then, no one would accuse Cousins of brevity. And for those who appreciate the director’s wide-eyed and open-hearted way of looking at cinema,...

Infinite Fest is a monthly column by festival programmer and film critic Eric Allen Hatch, author of the recent “Why I Am Hopeful” article for Filmmaker Magazine, tackling the state of cinema as expressed by North American film festivals.DiamantinoCinephilia is a subculture, and we need to represent it that way. I’m not asking you to wear tattered garments held together by safety pins, or accessorize clocks as necklaces. We don’t even need to stop trusting anyone over 30. But we do need to more aggressively filter cynical corporate product marketed to us—and more effectively proselytize for the authentic experiences that make film an art form rather than merely an industry. This cultural moment offers an abundance of that authenticity. Returning home from a week at Toronto International Film Festival, an annual pilgrimage for two decades, followed directly by another week in Maine for Camden International Film Festival,...

Urban Distribution International has just dropped an international trailer for “The Guest,” the second feature of Italian director Duccio Chiarini (“Short Skin”) which the Locarno Festival confirmed as one of its Piazza Grande titles, a space usually reserved for what it conceives as its biggest crowd-pleasers.

Udi’S French theatrical arm, Urban Distribution, will release “The Guest” in France; Swiss distribution will be handled by First Hand Films.

“The Guest,” from a trailer made available in exclusivity to Variety, would seem to fit the bill. An end-of-relationship drama -comedy developed at Cannes’ Cinefondation La Résidence, which picks up on up-and-coming stronger voiced auteurs from around the world, “The Guest” turns on near-40 Guido, played dopey-ishly by Daniele Parisi (“Orecchie”), an academic for ever preparing a book on Italo Calvino.

A pregnancy scare, caught in the trailer, is for Guido maybe a sign that he and longtime g.f. Chiara should have a family; for Chiara,...

by Nathaniel R

We're racing to the finish line for the 2017 film season. One more day until we can safely put that film year behind us and enter 2018 where y'all already are no doubt. Now we turn our eyes to the bold strokes categories. The men and women who inspired through heroics, were fun to hate, who preened fabulously, or (ahem) aroused us. So click on over to the Film Bitch Awards for:

Hero of the Year Diva of the Year Villain of the Year Sexpot of the Year Movie Poster of the Year

Films honored include Thor Ragnarok, The Shape of Water, Spider-Man Homecoming, Colossal, The Ornithologist, Wonder Woman, mother!, Phantom Thread, andmore. Hope you enjoy and report back with your own thoughts on these "extra" honors!

For his seventh feature, beloved American auteur Ira Sachs is taking his gig on the road. Sachs’ newest film, “A Family Vacation,” will start production this October in Portugal, and the “Love Is Strange” and “Little Men” filmmaker has lined up a cast of old favorites and new collaborators for the new drama. The film will star Academy Award nominee Isabelle Huppert, Jérémie Renier (“Saint Laurent,” “Summer Hours”), Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear, and André Wilms (Aki Kaurismaki’s “Le Havre” and “La Vie de Boheme”).

Billed as a family drama, and written by Sachs and his longtime co-writer Mauricio Zacharias (“Love is Strange,” “Little Men”), the feature is “about three generations of a family grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in Sintra, Portugal, a historic town known for its dense gardens and fairy-tale villas and palaces.”

Sachs previously worked...

The 43rd edition of the Belgian film festival to open with Cannes Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake.Scroll down for competition line-up

The programme for the 43rd Film Fest Gent (Oct 11-21) has been officially announced, including 12 films in official competition, as well as a diverse array of features in the Nordic, Japanese and Belgian cinema categories.

The festival will open with Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, which won this year’s Palme d’Or in Cannes.

International guests will include Loach, Isabelle Huppert, Terence Davies, Olivier Assayas, Mark Rappaport, Derek Cianfrance, Asghar Farhadi and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

The official competition opens on 16 October with Fien Troch’s Home, with the cast and crew in attendance.

Other directors presenting films in competition include Ivo Ferreira, Kôji Fukada and Terence Davies.

The international jury consists of producer Jeremy Thomas, director Tran Anh Hung (Norwegian Wood), actors Lina El Arabi (A Wedding) and India Hair (Staying Vertical...

Nigerian metropolis Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.

Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.

A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.

Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.

Rounding out the...

Nigerian capital Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.

Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.

A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.

Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.

Rounding out the...

The 69th annual Locarno Film Festival finally concluded after eleven days and screenings of 279 films, and awarded its Palmarès. The Golden Leopard went to “Godless,” a first feature from Bulgaria’s Ralitza Petrova. The film portrait of the criminal underbelly of Bulgaria also took home Best Actress for Irena Ivanova.

The fest jury awarded João Pedro Rodrigues Best Director for “O Ornitólogo.” Romanian director Radu Jude won the Special Jury Prize for his film “Inimi Cicatrizate” (Scarred Hearts), which was inspired by the 1937 Max Blecher novel.

Read More: João Pedro Rodrigues’ ‘The Ornithologist’ Will Blow Your Mind — Locarno Review

The public favorite, Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake,” about a UK retiree struggling to obtain medical assistance from the state, won the Audience Award; at Cannes, Indiewire’s Eric Kohn dubbed the film “Loach’s best movie in years.”

Read More: Cannes Review: Why ‘I, Daniel Blake’ is Ken Loach...

Bulgarian drama won the Golden Leopard as well as Best Actress for star Irena Ivanova.

Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova’s debut feature Godless has won the top prize, the Golden Leopard, at the 69th Locarno Film Festival.

The drama also took the Best Actress award for Irena Ivanova’s performance as a nurse looking after elderly patients with dementia in a remote Bulgarian town.

In addition, the production by Klas Film’s Rossitsa Valkanova with Denmark’s Snowglobe and France’s Alcatraz Films and Film Factory, received the Ecumenical Jury’s Prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,500 (CHF20,000).

The screenplay for Godless - which is being handled internationally by Greek-based Heretic Outreach - had been supported by Torino FilmLab’s FrameWork, Sarajevo’s CineLink and the Women in Film Finishing Fund in Los Angeles.

“This prize was unusual among juries because it was a unanimous decision between all the members of our team,” the International...

The festival’s Zabaltegi strand is introducing a competition for the first time.

The 64th San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has completed the line-up for its Zabaltegi-Tabakalera strand, which will be competitive for the first time.

New additions include sci-fi Midnight Special from Us filmmaker Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud), which premiered at the Berlinale in February.

Todd Solondz comedy-drama Wiener-Dog, first seen at Sundance in January, has also been selected for the strand. It marks the third time the Us writer/director has been chosen for Zabaltegi, after presenting Happiness in 1998 and Storytelling in 2001.

As previously announced, Bertrand Tavernier’s Voyage A Travers Le Cinema Francais (A Journey Through French Cinema) will open the strand.

Other highlights include Gimme Danger, Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about Iggy Pop and The Stooges, which premired at Cannes in May.

Also in the line-up is Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues’s fifth feature O Ornitólogo (L’Ornithologue), playing in competition...

NEWSThe lineup for the 69th Locarno Film Festival has been announced, with new movies by Yousry Nasrallah, Matías Piñeiro, João Pedro Rodrigues (O Ornitólogo, above) and Axelle Ropert in the International Competition, short films by Thom Andersen and Jia Zhangke, and more.Recommended VIEWINGThe trailer for Jeff Nichols' new film Loving, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, "It's All True," is devoted to American avant-garde director Bruce Conner. The Museum has generously put online the 1996 version of Conner's film Looking for Mushrooms.Recommended Reading"American Horror Story": Ezekiel Kweku's brief, moving and must-read analysis of trying to analyze the proliferating videos of deaths at the hands of the American police:The postmortem, the part we’re going through now, is also tiring. The videos of the death go viral, everyone talks about how shocking it is, which...