Luca Guadagnino’s playful sensuality extends beyond his desire for actors. The director of arthouse hits I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and now Call Me By Your Name lavishes focus on anyone who has his attention. Michael Stuhlbarg, co-star of Guadagnino’s new film, channels his attention through lugubrious, monastic-like focus. When I talked with both the former dances with his id for all to see and the latter negotiates with his ego before saying a word. Put them together and you get a snapshot of Call Me By Your Name’s sexual ethos: muted sensuality, or as the director put it, “We were free to show everything and we decided not to. And in a way it was a very liberating experience.”
Goodwill for Call Me By Your Name has already propelled the film to nearly $1 million and that’s from just four screens in New York and Los Angeles thus far.
Goodwill for Call Me By Your Name has already propelled the film to nearly $1 million and that’s from just four screens in New York and Los Angeles thus far.
- 12/7/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Mubi is showing Seijun Suzuki's Taisho Trilogy from November 13 - December 27, 2017 in the United States and United Kingdom.In a now-famous quote from a 1997 video interview, the late Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki paraphrases Nikkatsu Studio executives when he declares, "I make movies that make no sense and make no money.” The quip is put forth in the context of 1967’sBranded to Kill, the pop-influenced noir that arguably stands as the artistic pinnacle of Suzuki’s career as a filmmaker of yakuza, gangster, and proto-pink films with Nikkatsu. While others have contested Suzuki’s claims that his nonsensical and unbankable output lead to the fissure between the filmmaker and Nikkatsu—pointing instead to the drain he and his dedicated coterie of assistant directors placed on the studio—Branded to Kill was the cap to a prodigious run of no less than two features a year from 1956 through 1966, and Suzuki's his...
- 12/5/2017
- MUBI
Hong Sang-soo has a reputation for being a tricky interview, and he knows it. In Claire’s Camera, one of his three films that premiered in 2017, a Korean director who’s in Cannes to promote his latest movie tries to back out of the two press engagements on his schedule. “You need to do that much,” his sales agent cajoles him. “It’s not that much.”Hong, likewise, has been known to cancel or reschedule interviews and to give terse and seemingly disinterested answers. He tends to talk about his production methods in the most straight-forward terms and dismisses questions about authorial intent. Asking him to interpret his own work is a fool’s errand. “I get up at 4:00, I smoke, and something I didn’t expect comes to me,” he told me. I met Hong in the bar of the Loews Regency on October 9th, the afternoon after his other two new films,...
- 11/15/2017
- MUBI
Present Laughter, Pokemon the Movie and Follies top our November Events listPresent Laughter, Pokemon the Movie and Follies top our November Events listScott Goodyer11/1/2017 10:06:00 Am
November is here and this month's Event Cinema lineup is enough to keep the oncoming winter chill away! We've got a wide variety of different screenings, from ballet and Broadway to anime, to warm your hearts.
November 2nd: Present Laughter
The great actor Kevin Kline stars in the Broadway hit Present Laughter, which follows Garry Essendine, a self-indulgent actor who receives a visit from a young admirer, initiating a parade of intruders and interruptions, including his ex-wife, his manager and an aspiring playwright.
Watch the trailer below and for tickets - click here!
November 5th: Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You!
This special event explores Ash and Pikachu’s first meeting and their adventures as they search for the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh. The...
November is here and this month's Event Cinema lineup is enough to keep the oncoming winter chill away! We've got a wide variety of different screenings, from ballet and Broadway to anime, to warm your hearts.
November 2nd: Present Laughter
The great actor Kevin Kline stars in the Broadway hit Present Laughter, which follows Garry Essendine, a self-indulgent actor who receives a visit from a young admirer, initiating a parade of intruders and interruptions, including his ex-wife, his manager and an aspiring playwright.
Watch the trailer below and for tickets - click here!
November 5th: Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You!
This special event explores Ash and Pikachu’s first meeting and their adventures as they search for the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh. The...
- 11/1/2017
- by Scott Goodyer
- Cineplex
Luis Buñuel’s elegantly surreal film about a bored housewife and part-time sex worker offers a shrewd, scabrous commentary on social and gender relations
Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is 50 years old and back in UK cinemas with all its creamy elegance and scabrous humour intact. With co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière, Buñuel creates a secret theatre of erotic shame. The only thing that really dates the film is a startling moment when someone reads aloud a newspaper headline about Aberfan. It’s the one moment in Buñuel’s career when his surrealism was unintentional.
This is the story of Séverine, played by Catherine Deneuve, the beautiful, bored young wife of a wealthy Parisian surgeon, who submits to her conjugal duties rarely and unwillingly, but becomes a high-class prostitute during the day, answering only to the name Belle de Jour and experiencing a secret erotic martyrdom, all deeply bound up with...
Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is 50 years old and back in UK cinemas with all its creamy elegance and scabrous humour intact. With co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière, Buñuel creates a secret theatre of erotic shame. The only thing that really dates the film is a startling moment when someone reads aloud a newspaper headline about Aberfan. It’s the one moment in Buñuel’s career when his surrealism was unintentional.
This is the story of Séverine, played by Catherine Deneuve, the beautiful, bored young wife of a wealthy Parisian surgeon, who submits to her conjugal duties rarely and unwillingly, but becomes a high-class prostitute during the day, answering only to the name Belle de Jour and experiencing a secret erotic martyrdom, all deeply bound up with...
- 9/6/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Perhaps by January, the animated story of Luis Buñuel and how he became who he became will be on the festival circuit. Animated out of Spain by The Glow Animation Studio created by Manuel Cristóbal, Salvador Simó and José Mª Fdez. de Vega, in Almendralejo, in the region of Extremadura in the Southwest of Spain where Las Hurdes is also located where Luis Buñuel filmed his documentary Land Without Bread in the 1930s and the location where the studio is shooting its first feature film, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles based on the graphic novel of the same name by Fermín Solís.
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
1930, Paris, the film L’Age d’Or is a scandal and Luis Buñuel,...
We develop and produce animation and visual effects in projects of our own creation or in co-production. We like to work on independent projects, with a different, innovative vision of the world of entertainment and an international vocation.
1930, Paris, the film L’Age d’Or is a scandal and Luis Buñuel,...
- 8/27/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The history of the Muriel Awards stretches aaaalllll the way back to 2006, which means that this coming season will be a special anniversary, marking 10 years of observing the annual quality and achievement of the year in film. (If you don’t know about the Muriels, you can check up on that history here.) The voting group, of which I am a proud member, having participated since Year One, has also made its personal nod to film history by always having incorporated 10, 25 and 50-year anniversary awards, saluting what is agreed upon by ballot to be the best films from those anniversaries during each annual voting process.
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
- 8/19/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
“Belle de Jour,” Luis Buñuel’s erotic drama about a bored and troubled housewife who turns to prostitution for titillation, remains one of the great achievements in surrealist and erotic cinema after 50 years. Lucky for cinephiles, the movie is celebrating its semicentennial anniversary by returning to the big screen with a major 4K restoration. Let’s just say Séverine’s fantasies have never looked so sensual or felt more dangerous.
Read More: The 15 Best Indie Films About Sex
Catherine Deneuve is front and center as Séverine. She pretty much lives the perfect bourgeois life — she’s married to a wealthy surgeon, has all the time in the world and accrues admirers wherever she goes. But under the surface Séverine is consumed by virulent sexual fantasies that threaten to dissolve her sanity. Behind her husband’s back, she decides to indulge in her fantasies, which range from masochism to bondage. She joins a local high-class brothel,...
Read More: The 15 Best Indie Films About Sex
Catherine Deneuve is front and center as Séverine. She pretty much lives the perfect bourgeois life — she’s married to a wealthy surgeon, has all the time in the world and accrues admirers wherever she goes. But under the surface Séverine is consumed by virulent sexual fantasies that threaten to dissolve her sanity. Behind her husband’s back, she decides to indulge in her fantasies, which range from masochism to bondage. She joins a local high-class brothel,...
- 7/6/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
While Luis Buñuel’s Catherine Deneuve-led masterpiece Belle de Jour joined The Criterion Collection earlier this decade, with the film now celebrating its 50th anniversary it had undergone another restoration. Premiering at Cannes earlier this year, the 4K restoration will now hit French theaters next month and a new trailer has arrived.
“It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best. That’s because it understands eroticism from the inside-out–understands how it exists not in sweat and skin, but in the imagination,” Roger Ebert said. Indeed, Buñuel’s film — which follows Deneuve’s housewife character as she begins working at a brothel — still resonates today, and this restoration looks stunning, so hopefully it comes to the U.S. soon.
Check out the new trailer and poster below for the film also starring Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviève Page, and Pierre Clémenti.
Catherine Deneuve’s...
“It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best. That’s because it understands eroticism from the inside-out–understands how it exists not in sweat and skin, but in the imagination,” Roger Ebert said. Indeed, Buñuel’s film — which follows Deneuve’s housewife character as she begins working at a brothel — still resonates today, and this restoration looks stunning, so hopefully it comes to the U.S. soon.
Check out the new trailer and poster below for the film also starring Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviève Page, and Pierre Clémenti.
Catherine Deneuve’s...
- 7/6/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Luis Buñuel's Viridiana (1961) is showing June 17 - July 17 and The Exterminating Angel (1962) is showing June 18 - July 18, 2017 in the United Kingdom.ViridianaIt’s impossible to avoid describing the films of Spanish director Luis Buñuel as “surreal,” and yet to do so is woefully insufficient. This is for two reasons. In the first place, Buñuel never made one kind of film. In the second place, even his strangest films deal with social reality.Early in his career Buñuel did associate himself with the Surrealist art movement. Among his first productions were the infamous Un chien Andalou (1929) and L'âge d'or (1930), experimental narratives co-written by Salvador Dali in which bizarre and violent psychosexual incidents connect via absurd dream logic. It’s worth bearing in mind that the Surrealists never meant “surreal” to act as a mere label for the uniquely strange.
- 6/16/2017
- MUBI
Exclusive: New project is a “provocative” look at the Us prison system.
Submarine, the independent film and transmedia production company set up by Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix in 2000, is to co produce American Jail (working title), the latest film from Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated Life, Animated (pictured).
Billed as “a deeply personal and provocative film,” the feature doc follows Roger Ross Williams as he sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces at work in America’s prison system.
He embarks on a search for solutions to help the community he came from in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other partners on the project include CNN, BBC and the Why foundation.
Submarine is also producing another provocative new feature doc The Method Bellingcat, about online group Bellingcat (formerly known as The Brown Moses blog), founded by citizen journalist Eliot Higgins.
Leicester-based blogger Higgins attracted a worldwide following for his work identifying the provenance of weapons...
Submarine, the independent film and transmedia production company set up by Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix in 2000, is to co produce American Jail (working title), the latest film from Roger Ross Williams, director of Oscar-nominated Life, Animated (pictured).
Billed as “a deeply personal and provocative film,” the feature doc follows Roger Ross Williams as he sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces at work in America’s prison system.
He embarks on a search for solutions to help the community he came from in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other partners on the project include CNN, BBC and the Why foundation.
Submarine is also producing another provocative new feature doc The Method Bellingcat, about online group Bellingcat (formerly known as The Brown Moses blog), founded by citizen journalist Eliot Higgins.
Leicester-based blogger Higgins attracted a worldwide following for his work identifying the provenance of weapons...
- 5/21/2017
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
We are excited to partner this year with L.A. Ola, a showcase of the best contemporary independent cinema from Spain, to show several of their films on Mubi in May and June, 2017. Agata's FriendsFor the third consecutive year, the L..A. Ola showcase strives to bring the best of Spain’s current independent cinema to Los Angeles for a short but concise program. This year, the festival will take place in various L.A venues from May 18 - 21 and will later travel to the East Coast with four of the program’s feature films for a special New York edition, which will show from June 2 - 4 at Anthology Film Archives. Although some of the films showcased are already well into their international festival lifespan, some of the films might have their U.S. premier at L.A. Ola. But for us here in the U.S., L.A. Ola...
- 5/19/2017
- MUBI
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: In honor of the Cannes Film Festival, the 70th edition of which starts this week, what is the best film to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or?
For a complete list of Palme d’Or winners, click here.
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
This question is impossible because I clearly haven’t seen all 40 Palme d’Or winners (it’s on my to do list, I swear). But I could easily say “Apocalypse Now,” “Paris, Texas,” “Taxi Driver,” “Amour,” or even “Pulp Fiction.” But since this is a personal question, I have to say “The Tree of Life.” No film has moved me...
This week’s question: In honor of the Cannes Film Festival, the 70th edition of which starts this week, what is the best film to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or?
For a complete list of Palme d’Or winners, click here.
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
This question is impossible because I clearly haven’t seen all 40 Palme d’Or winners (it’s on my to do list, I swear). But I could easily say “Apocalypse Now,” “Paris, Texas,” “Taxi Driver,” “Amour,” or even “Pulp Fiction.” But since this is a personal question, I have to say “The Tree of Life.” No film has moved me...
- 5/15/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The 2017 Cannes Film Festival has announced the lineup for Cannes Classics, a selection of vintage films and masterpieces from the history of cinema. This year’s program is dedicated primarily to the history of the festival, and includes one short film and five new documentaries.
Read More: Cannes Adds Roman Polanski Film to Lineup
Highlights from the lineup include “Belle du Jour” (1967), Luis Bunuel’s classic about a housewife who dabbles in prostitution, and “All That Jazz ” (1979) Bob Fosse’s story of a womanizing, drug-using dancer played by Roy Scheider. There is also the documentary “Filmworker,” which tells the story of Leon Vitali, an actor who abandoned his career after “Barry Lyndon” to become Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man and creative collaborator behind the scenes.
Rights holders to the films decide whether to screen them in 2K or 4K, or use an original print. Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante,...
Read More: Cannes Adds Roman Polanski Film to Lineup
Highlights from the lineup include “Belle du Jour” (1967), Luis Bunuel’s classic about a housewife who dabbles in prostitution, and “All That Jazz ” (1979) Bob Fosse’s story of a womanizing, drug-using dancer played by Roy Scheider. There is also the documentary “Filmworker,” which tells the story of Leon Vitali, an actor who abandoned his career after “Barry Lyndon” to become Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man and creative collaborator behind the scenes.
Rights holders to the films decide whether to screen them in 2K or 4K, or use an original print. Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante,...
- 5/3/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Strand will focus on the history of Cannes for the festival’s 70th anniversary.
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
- 5/3/2017
- ScreenDaily
Mubi's retrospective, Catherine Breillat, Auteur of Porn?, is showing April 4 - June 3, 2017 in Germany.Sex Is ComedyThroughout her career, Catherine Breillat has provided viewers with a long-form meta-cinema experience. While metacinema is as old as the medium itself, since her debut feature A Real Young Girl in 1976, Breillat has developed a distinct form of it: one that collapses ‘autobiographical’ material, various artistic sensibilities, and the process of filmmaking itself.Like dozens of other English words—such as ‘aesthetic’ or ‘abject’—the word ‘meta’ has been largely misused or misapplied with regard to the film and literary criticism. Regarding the consumption of fiction, the appropriate use of the term 'metafiction,' 'metafilm,' et cetera, has its basis in the Greek meta, which does not translate directly into English but can be understood as a preposition similar to the English word ‘about’ (‘having to do with,’ or ‘on the subject of’). Metafiction is therefore,...
- 4/24/2017
- MUBI
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Take the Money and Run originally had a different ending that was cut by editor Ralph Rosenblum. What was it?
Woody is killed in a bloody gun ambush. Woody becomes president. Woody appears to tear a hole in the movie screen and “escapes” into the theater.
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This week sees the 40th anniversary of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall so a career overview for the brilliant humorist/director seems in order.
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Categories Not categorized 0% Your result has been entered into leaderboard Loading Name: E-Mail: Captcha: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Answered Review Question 1 of 10 1. Question
Take the Money and Run originally had a different ending that was cut by editor Ralph Rosenblum. What was it?
Woody is killed in a bloody gun ambush. Woody becomes president. Woody appears to tear a hole in the movie screen and “escapes” into the theater.
- 4/16/2017
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Take one fiercely individual auteur fed up with the Hollywood game, put him in Kyoto with a full Japanese film company, and the result is a picture critics have been trying to figure out ever since. It’s a realistic story told in a highly artificial visual style, in un-subtitled Japanese. And its writer-director intended it to play for American audiences.
The Saga of Anatahan
Blu-ray
Kino Lorber
1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 91 min. / Anatahan, Ana-ta-han / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring: Akemi Negishi, Tadashi Suganuma, Kisaburo Sawamura, Shoji Nakayama, Jun Fujikawa, Hiroshi Kondo, Shozo Miyashita, Tsuruemon Bando, Kikuji Onoe, Rokuriro Kineya, Daijiro Tamura, Chizuru Kitagawa, Takeshi Suzuki, Shiro Amikura.
Cinematography: Josef von Sternberg, Kozo Okazaki
Film Editor: Mitsuzo Miyata
Original Music: Akira Ifukube
Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya
Written by Josef von Sternberg from the novel by Michiro Maruyama & Younghill Kang
Produced by Kazuo Takimura
Directed by Josef von Sternberg...
The Saga of Anatahan
Blu-ray
Kino Lorber
1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 91 min. / Anatahan, Ana-ta-han / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring: Akemi Negishi, Tadashi Suganuma, Kisaburo Sawamura, Shoji Nakayama, Jun Fujikawa, Hiroshi Kondo, Shozo Miyashita, Tsuruemon Bando, Kikuji Onoe, Rokuriro Kineya, Daijiro Tamura, Chizuru Kitagawa, Takeshi Suzuki, Shiro Amikura.
Cinematography: Josef von Sternberg, Kozo Okazaki
Film Editor: Mitsuzo Miyata
Original Music: Akira Ifukube
Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya
Written by Josef von Sternberg from the novel by Michiro Maruyama & Younghill Kang
Produced by Kazuo Takimura
Directed by Josef von Sternberg...
- 4/11/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Beneficiaries include team behind children’s fantasy film Admiral.Scroll down for full list of projects
The Netherlands Film Production Incentive scheme has backed 21 film projects to the tune of €6.1m in its latest funding round, including 15 feature films, five documentaries and one animated feature.
The average investment was €291,185, with the smallest being €40,000 and the largest sum, €900,000, going to the team behind 2015 fantasy film Admiral [pictured] for their new project Redbad 754 A.D.
Currently in pre-production, Redbad 754 A.D. will be directed by Rob Reiné (who is attached to direct episdoes of Marvel’s upcoming TV series Inhumans) from a script by Alex van Galen. Dutch producers will be Farmhouse TV en Film, with Belgian outfit Bulletproof Cupid co-producing.
The Conductor, directed and written by Maria Peters and produced by Shooting Star Filmcompany, received the second largest grant with €898,111. Peters’ previous credits include romantic drama Sonny Boy and family film Mike Says Goodbye!.
Projects also receiving...
The Netherlands Film Production Incentive scheme has backed 21 film projects to the tune of €6.1m in its latest funding round, including 15 feature films, five documentaries and one animated feature.
The average investment was €291,185, with the smallest being €40,000 and the largest sum, €900,000, going to the team behind 2015 fantasy film Admiral [pictured] for their new project Redbad 754 A.D.
Currently in pre-production, Redbad 754 A.D. will be directed by Rob Reiné (who is attached to direct episdoes of Marvel’s upcoming TV series Inhumans) from a script by Alex van Galen. Dutch producers will be Farmhouse TV en Film, with Belgian outfit Bulletproof Cupid co-producing.
The Conductor, directed and written by Maria Peters and produced by Shooting Star Filmcompany, received the second largest grant with €898,111. Peters’ previous credits include romantic drama Sonny Boy and family film Mike Says Goodbye!.
Projects also receiving...
- 3/28/2017
- ScreenDaily
Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel died in 1983, but his films continue to inspire many filmmakers today, including Woody Allen and David O. Russell. New York’s Metrograph theater is presenting a series of the surrealist filmmaker’s work from March 30 to April 6 entitled “Buñuel in France” that will feature five of his films. Buñuel directed 35 movies between 1929 and 1977.
Read More: Watch: Was Luis Buñuel a Fetishist? A Video Essay
Here are seven filmmakers who have listed a Buñuel film in their top 10 movies of all time.
Woody Allen
Allen’s favorite Buñuel film is 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” the famous comedy about six middle-class people attempting to have a meal together. Allen wore his inspiration on his shirt sleeve in his 2011 fantasty-comedy “Midnight in Paris,” casting the actor Adrien De Van to play Buñuel in a scene also featuring the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody) and visual...
Read More: Watch: Was Luis Buñuel a Fetishist? A Video Essay
Here are seven filmmakers who have listed a Buñuel film in their top 10 movies of all time.
Woody Allen
Allen’s favorite Buñuel film is 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” the famous comedy about six middle-class people attempting to have a meal together. Allen wore his inspiration on his shirt sleeve in his 2011 fantasty-comedy “Midnight in Paris,” casting the actor Adrien De Van to play Buñuel in a scene also featuring the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody) and visual...
- 3/24/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 855
1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 89 min. / Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 21, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Carmen Maura, Fernando Guillén, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma, María Barranco, Kiti Manver, Guillermo Montesinos, Chus Lampreave, Yayo Calvo, Loles León, Ángel de Andrés López, José Antonio Navarro.
Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine
Film Editor: José Salcedo
Original Music: Bernardo Bonezzi
Produced by: Augustin Almodóvar
Written and Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Connected film festival attendees learned about Pedro Almodóvar before everybody else, especially if they had an understanding of new developments in Spanish cinema. Film school had shown us nothing but the very exceptional work of Luis Buñuel, most of which is really from Mexico and France. In the 1980s we Angelenos were just getting access to films by the old-school ‘traditional’ rebel Spaniards Carlos Saura and Juan Antonio Bardem.
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 855
1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 89 min. / Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 21, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Carmen Maura, Fernando Guillén, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma, María Barranco, Kiti Manver, Guillermo Montesinos, Chus Lampreave, Yayo Calvo, Loles León, Ángel de Andrés López, José Antonio Navarro.
Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine
Film Editor: José Salcedo
Original Music: Bernardo Bonezzi
Produced by: Augustin Almodóvar
Written and Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Connected film festival attendees learned about Pedro Almodóvar before everybody else, especially if they had an understanding of new developments in Spanish cinema. Film school had shown us nothing but the very exceptional work of Luis Buñuel, most of which is really from Mexico and France. In the 1980s we Angelenos were just getting access to films by the old-school ‘traditional’ rebel Spaniards Carlos Saura and Juan Antonio Bardem.
- 1/31/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Luis Buñuel's El Angel Exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) is one of the greatest works of cinematic surrealism of the '60s. Even as Buñuel's profile rose later in the decade with films like Belle de jour, and then on into the '70s with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Exterminating Angel packs a satisfying punch against a polite society of the Mexican monied upper class. As an elaborate feast winds to a close, the guests can't seem to make their way out of the room to leave. What first appears to be a comedy of manners, with each guest deferring to the next in terms of who should lead the exodus, quickly deteriorates into a surrealist quagmire in which these men and women of high...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 12/12/2016
- Screen Anarchy
Will somebody explain the sheep and the bear? Luis Buñuel really knows how to disturb people. This, his most characteristic surreal drama proposes an impossible, irrational situation – which isn’t all that different from the reality we know. Petty social rules, jealousies and bitterness make life hell for group of dinner guests stuck with each other, caught in an existential trap.
The Exterminating Angel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 459
1962 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 6, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Augusto Benedicio, José Baviera, Antonio Bravo, Claudio Brook, Rosa Elena Durgel, Lucy Gallardo, Tito Junco .
Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa
Film Editor Carlos Savage
Original Music Raúl Lavista
Based on a story by Luis Alcoriza, Luis Buñuel
Produced by Gustavo Alatriste
Written and Directed by Luis Buñuel
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
That intransigent rebel imp Luis Buñuel never mellowed — after ten or so...
The Exterminating Angel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 459
1962 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 6, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Augusto Benedicio, José Baviera, Antonio Bravo, Claudio Brook, Rosa Elena Durgel, Lucy Gallardo, Tito Junco .
Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa
Film Editor Carlos Savage
Original Music Raúl Lavista
Based on a story by Luis Alcoriza, Luis Buñuel
Produced by Gustavo Alatriste
Written and Directed by Luis Buñuel
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
That intransigent rebel imp Luis Buñuel never mellowed — after ten or so...
- 12/6/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
If you were alive in the ‘80s or ‘90s, it was impossible to avoid the ever-presence of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, whether it was science fiction hits Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers or his erotic thriller Basic Instinct. His 1995 film Showgirls has alternately been cited as a campy classic and one of the worst films ever made.
After 2000’s Hollow Man, Verhoeven turned his back on Hollywood, in a sense, by returning to Holland to make the World War II film Black Book with Carice Van Houten (Game of Thrones), but now Verhoeven is back with Elle, a French revenge thriller starring French femme fatale Isabelle Huppert as a woman raped in her home who decides to get revenge in a rather unconventional way.
Lrm sat down with the veteran filmmaker to talk about his new film—and there’s a mild Spoiler Warning here, since he does allude...
After 2000’s Hollow Man, Verhoeven turned his back on Hollywood, in a sense, by returning to Holland to make the World War II film Black Book with Carice Van Houten (Game of Thrones), but now Verhoeven is back with Elle, a French revenge thriller starring French femme fatale Isabelle Huppert as a woman raped in her home who decides to get revenge in a rather unconventional way.
Lrm sat down with the veteran filmmaker to talk about his new film—and there’s a mild Spoiler Warning here, since he does allude...
- 11/28/2016
- by Edward Douglas
- LRMonline.com
Now for something truly remarkable from the neglected Spanish cinema. Luis García Berlanga's wicked satire is a humanistic black comedy, free of cynicism. The borderline Kafkaesque situation of an everyman forced into a profession that horrifies him is funny and warm hearted - but with a ruthless logic that points to universal issues beyond Franco Fascism. The Executioner Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 840 1963 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / El Verdugo / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 25, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Nino Manfredi, Emma Penella, José Isbert . Cinematography Tonino Delli Colli Film Editor Afonso Santacana Original Music Miguel Asins Arbó Written by Luis García Berlanga, Rafael Azcona, Ennio Flaiano Produced by Nazario Belmar Directed by Luis García Berlanga
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Criterion brings us 1963's The Executioner (El Verdugo), a major discovery for film fans that thought Spanish cinema began and ended with Luis Buñuel. I've seen politically-charged Spanish films from...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Criterion brings us 1963's The Executioner (El Verdugo), a major discovery for film fans that thought Spanish cinema began and ended with Luis Buñuel. I've seen politically-charged Spanish films from...
- 10/25/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Above: Italian 2-foglio for Loves of a Blonde (Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1965).As the 54th New York Film Festival winds to a close this weekend I thought it would be instructive to look back at its counterpart of 50 years ago. Sadly, for the sake of symmetry, there are no filmmakers straddling both the 1966 and the 2016 editions, though Agnès Varda (88 years old), Jean-Luc Godard (85), Carlos Saura (84) and Jirí Menzel (78)—all of whom had films in the 1966 Nyff—are all still making films, and Milos Forman (84), Ivan Passer (83) and Peter Watkins (80) are all still with us. There are only two filmmakers in the current Nyff who could potentially have been in the 1966 edition and they are Ken Loach (80) and Paul Verhoeven (78). The current Nyff is remarkably youthful—half the filmmakers weren’t even born in 1966 and, with the exception of Loach and Verhoeven, the old guard is now represented by Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar,...
- 10/15/2016
- MUBI
Hollywood’s favorite Latina maid is about to get a lesson in feminism — from the mouth of her vagina.
In “Valentina,” a short film currently raising money on Kickstarter, the title character is a cleaning lady obsessed with — what else? — being clean. Set in the near future, a heat wave and power outage shatter Valentina’s creature comforts, forcing her to confront her own filth. Especially one part of her body that is most susceptible to heat and sweat. According to filmmaker Mary Angélica Molina, the film explores “what happens when she’s confronted with this part of her body that she has either ignored or tried to keep under control.”
Read More: Mark Duplass’ Pet Project ‘Unlovable,’ from Web Star Charlene deGuzman, Launches Kickstarter Campaign
Molina, who spoke to IndieWire by phone, is a twice-recognized Sundance fellow (for screenwriting and creative producing) who cites Luis Buñuel as an influence.
In “Valentina,” a short film currently raising money on Kickstarter, the title character is a cleaning lady obsessed with — what else? — being clean. Set in the near future, a heat wave and power outage shatter Valentina’s creature comforts, forcing her to confront her own filth. Especially one part of her body that is most susceptible to heat and sweat. According to filmmaker Mary Angélica Molina, the film explores “what happens when she’s confronted with this part of her body that she has either ignored or tried to keep under control.”
Read More: Mark Duplass’ Pet Project ‘Unlovable,’ from Web Star Charlene deGuzman, Launches Kickstarter Campaign
Molina, who spoke to IndieWire by phone, is a twice-recognized Sundance fellow (for screenwriting and creative producing) who cites Luis Buñuel as an influence.
- 10/10/2016
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Marlen KhutsievI discovered the name Marlen Khutsiev two summers ago at the Locarno Film Festival, where Russian critic and programmer Boris Nelepo introduced an increasingly awestruck audience to the small but overwhelming filmography of this Russian filmmaker. Thankfully for American audiences, the Museum of Modern Art has picked up and continued this essential retrospective, which starts October 5 in New York, expanding it in the process, and so here I will gather my thoughts upon encountering this truly stunning work for the first time.My experience began incongruously with Khutsiev’s last completed feature, 1992's Infinitas, an unexpected choice considering that the film's 206 minute wanderings of a middle-aged man through his life and memories was even to this uninformed viewer clearly autobiographical. After next viewing Khutsiev's 1965 masterpiece variably known as Fortress Il'ichi, Ilych's Gate and I Am Twenty, it was clear that Infinitas is also a continuation or sequel to that semi-autobiographical film,...
- 10/4/2016
- MUBI
The Criterion Collection has announced its offerings for the last month of the year, with one contemporary title (“Heart of a Dog”) mixed in with the classic (“Roma,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “The Exterminating Angel”) fare. Check out the covers for the new additions below, as well as synopses for each carefully chosen film.
Read More: Kieslowski, ‘Cat People,’ and the Coen Brothers Lead The Criterion Collection’s September Line-Up
“The Exterminating Angel”
A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in “The Exterminating Angel” (“El ángel exterminador”), a daring masterpiece from Luis Buñuel (“Belle de jour,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”). Made just one year after his international sensation “Viridiana,” this film, full of eerie, comic absurdity, furthers Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.
“Heart of a Dog”
“Heart of a Dog...
Read More: Kieslowski, ‘Cat People,’ and the Coen Brothers Lead The Criterion Collection’s September Line-Up
“The Exterminating Angel”
A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave in “The Exterminating Angel” (“El ángel exterminador”), a daring masterpiece from Luis Buñuel (“Belle de jour,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”). Made just one year after his international sensation “Viridiana,” this film, full of eerie, comic absurdity, furthers Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.
“Heart of a Dog”
“Heart of a Dog...
- 9/15/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Writer, actor and director to receive Lifetime Achievement Award.
French writer-director-actor Jean-Claude Carrière is to receive this year’s Efa Lifetime Achievement Award.
He will be honorary guest at the 29th European Film Awards Ceremony on 10 December in Wroclaw.
Carrière started out writing short novels based on the films of Jacques Tati. Through Tati he met Pierre Étaix with whom he made several films, among them the short Happy Anniversary (1962), which won them an Oscar.
Together with Luis Buñuel, the Frenchman wrote the screenplay for Diary Of A Chambermaid (1964), in which he also played the part of a village priest. This started a 19-year-collaboration on the scripts of almost all of Buñuel’s later films, including Belle De Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie for which they won the BAFTA for Best Screenplay.
He received another BAFTA for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), which he co-wrote with the film’s director Philip Kaufman, and a French...
French writer-director-actor Jean-Claude Carrière is to receive this year’s Efa Lifetime Achievement Award.
He will be honorary guest at the 29th European Film Awards Ceremony on 10 December in Wroclaw.
Carrière started out writing short novels based on the films of Jacques Tati. Through Tati he met Pierre Étaix with whom he made several films, among them the short Happy Anniversary (1962), which won them an Oscar.
Together with Luis Buñuel, the Frenchman wrote the screenplay for Diary Of A Chambermaid (1964), in which he also played the part of a village priest. This started a 19-year-collaboration on the scripts of almost all of Buñuel’s later films, including Belle De Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie for which they won the BAFTA for Best Screenplay.
He received another BAFTA for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), which he co-wrote with the film’s director Philip Kaufman, and a French...
- 9/13/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty Expressionist fable is as German as they get -- a morbid folk tale with an emotionally powerful finish. Destiny Blu-ray Kino Classics 1921 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 98 min. / Street Date August 30, 2016 / Der müde Tod / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg John. Cinematography Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner Film Editor Fritz Lang Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...
- 8/6/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
About halfway through both Jean Renoir’s and Luis Buñuel’s interpretations of Octave Mirbeau’s 1900 class satire, A Diary of A Chambermaid, there’s a scene where Joseph – the sociopathic valet – proclaims his obsession with Célestine. “We may be different on the surface, but we’re the same underneath,” Joseph slithers out as he grabs her.
For Buñuel, it’s the emergence of a pattern of wanton perversion, a moment that showcases the director’s personal fondness for abrasion, while also blurring his intentions with Célestine. For Renoir, it’s the Hollywood introduction of a sinister villain, a possessive sadist who covets Celestine for her perceived impurity. But in Benoît Jacquot’s psychologically sublimated adaptation, the scene never comes.
Joseph (Vincent Lindon) isn’t the hunter, he’s the prey, and as much as Célestine talks about being tangled in his lurid magnetism, she’s fully in control of both of their fates.
For Buñuel, it’s the emergence of a pattern of wanton perversion, a moment that showcases the director’s personal fondness for abrasion, while also blurring his intentions with Célestine. For Renoir, it’s the Hollywood introduction of a sinister villain, a possessive sadist who covets Celestine for her perceived impurity. But in Benoît Jacquot’s psychologically sublimated adaptation, the scene never comes.
Joseph (Vincent Lindon) isn’t the hunter, he’s the prey, and as much as Célestine talks about being tangled in his lurid magnetism, she’s fully in control of both of their fates.
- 6/10/2016
- by Michael Snydel
- The Film Stage
Luis Buñuel's most direct film about revolutionary politics brandishes few if any surreal touches in its clash between French star Gérard Philipe and the Mexican legend María Félix. Borrowing the climax of the opera Tosca, it's an intelligent study of how not to effect change in a corrupt political regime. La fièvre monte à El Pao Region A+B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Pathé (Fr) 1959 / B&W / 1:37 flat (should be 1:66 widescreen) / 96 min. / Los Ambiciosos; "Fever Mounts at El Pao" / Street Date December 4, 2013 / available at Amazon France / Eur 26,27 Starring Gérard Philipe, María Félix, Jean Servais, M.A. Soler, Raúl Dantés, Domingo Soler, Víctor Junco, Roberto Cañedo, Enrique Lucero, Pilar Pellicer, David Reynoso, Andrés Soler. Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa Assistant Director Juan Luis Buñuel Original Music Paul Misraki Written by Luis Buñuel, Luis Alcoriza, Charles Dorat, Louis Sapin from a novel by Henri Castillou Produced by Jacques Bar, Óscar Dancigers, Gregorio Walerstein...
- 5/21/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
There’s something claustrophobic about a film set entirely in a single location, an unsettling feeling of being cornered in a confined environment, cut off from the rest of the world. Stories such as these require nuanced characters and thoughtful attention to narrative detail, many of which employ a theatrical feel, while others were literally sprung from a playwright’s pen. Their action sequences are merely verbal, characters revealing shocking truths and saying the unthinkable, while the setting forces them together until an often brutal conclusion. When people are trapped like rats, it’s no surprise they sometimes eat each other.
A new entry in this sub-genre, Green Room, a violent thriller from Blue Ruin director Jeremy Saulnier expands this weekend. In the film, after a punk band witnesses a vicious murder, they find themselves trapped in the club’s green room, forced to fight their way out to freedom.
A new entry in this sub-genre, Green Room, a violent thriller from Blue Ruin director Jeremy Saulnier expands this weekend. In the film, after a punk band witnesses a vicious murder, they find themselves trapped in the club’s green room, forced to fight their way out to freedom.
- 4/28/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Crafting one of the most eclectic careers in recent memory, following James Bond, Léa Seydoux will be seen in the latest films from Yorgos Lanthimos and Xavier Dolan this year. One of her other features, Diary of a Chambermaid, which premiered last year at the Berlin Film Festival, will finally hit U.S. theaters this summer thanks to Cohen Media Group, and today we have a new trailer.
Directed by Benoit Jacquot, following in the footsteps of Renoir and Bunuel, the story follows Seydoux as a servant who doesn’t exactly fit into her surroundings. Check out the trailer below for the film also starring Vincent Lindon, Clotilde Mollet, Hervé Pierre, Mélodie Valemberg, Patrick D’Assumçao, Vincent Lacoste, Joséphine Derenne, and Dominique Reymond.
Léa Seydoux follows in the footsteps of Paulette Goddard and Jeanne Moreau as Célestine, a resentful young Parisian chambermaid who finds herself exiled to a position in...
Directed by Benoit Jacquot, following in the footsteps of Renoir and Bunuel, the story follows Seydoux as a servant who doesn’t exactly fit into her surroundings. Check out the trailer below for the film also starring Vincent Lindon, Clotilde Mollet, Hervé Pierre, Mélodie Valemberg, Patrick D’Assumçao, Vincent Lacoste, Joséphine Derenne, and Dominique Reymond.
Léa Seydoux follows in the footsteps of Paulette Goddard and Jeanne Moreau as Célestine, a resentful young Parisian chambermaid who finds herself exiled to a position in...
- 4/25/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
We all have predisposed notions about the infamous “romantic comedy.” As with other genres, there’s a large subsection of offerings, giving it a bad name. But, for every tired, cliché-driven comedy, there is another impressive offering that redefines the genre, garners plenty of laughs, and tells an honest story about love and relationships, however warped they may be. In the coming weeks, we’ll take a look at the fifty romantic comedy films that should be seen. These may not all be classic films, but they certainly put a stamp on the industry and the genre we affectionately call “rom-coms.”
#50. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Most of Wes Anderson’s films could be described as romantic comedies, but his 2012 effort stands out, as its central story focuses on young love and the need to find acceptance. In Anderson’s world, while quirks abound, true connections between characters are commonplace. With Moonrise Kingdom,...
#50. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Most of Wes Anderson’s films could be described as romantic comedies, but his 2012 effort stands out, as its central story focuses on young love and the need to find acceptance. In Anderson’s world, while quirks abound, true connections between characters are commonplace. With Moonrise Kingdom,...
- 1/10/2016
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2015?Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2015—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2015 to create a unique double feature.All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2015 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/4/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Setsuko Hara, 1920 - 2015The great Japanese actress of Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring and Mikio Naruse's Repast passed away in September but the news has only recently been released. An indelible screen presence whose absence from movies has been felt every year since 1966.My MotherTop 10s: Cahiers du Cinéma + Sight & SoundFor us it's still too early to make judgement—we've hardly caught up with all of 2015's great cinema!—but the esteemed magazines of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound have made their selections for the best of the year:Cahiers du Cinéma1. My Mother (Nanni Moretti)2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)3. In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel)4. The Smell of Us (Larry Clark)5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)6. Jauja (Lisandor Alonso)7. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)8. Arabian Nights...
- 12/2/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
I have been visiting Cuba since 2000 when I went there to perfect my Spanish. My Spanish is still far from perfect but I have grown to love Cuba. Since I went there to learn and happened upon the Havana Film Festival which is held this year December 3rd to 13th, I have returned to the Festival every year and have found a world of great talent which increasingly is raring to get out into the world.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
- 11/19/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Special Mention: Un chien andalou
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
- 10/28/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
I haven’t traveled all I have to Buenos Aires and back to tell you about how this festival, alongside Mar del Plata and Valdivia (this last one in Chile), form the triad of the most important festivals of Latin America, because if you know about it, you know about it. People that have travelled to Argentina for the past 17 years in April have felt the presence of cinema in the streets—and Buenos Aires is a big city. The importance of a festival that brings over 300 titles, some of them for the first time crossing an ocean, is fundamental for the Latino viewer, as well for those who want to make the effort and come to see the movies that play here. On a closer look, what plays here may seem to be eclectic at times, it is purely due to what seems to be the motto of the festival: discovery.
- 6/8/2015
- by Jaime Grijalba Gómez
- MUBI
After only two features, Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011), Norwegian director (by way of Denmark) Joachim Trier has not only reached the competition in the Festival de Cannes with his latest movie, Louder than Bombs, he has also crossed the Atlantic to make a film in American with an international cast. The story of the emotional and familial fall-out after the death a famed war photographer (Isabelle Huppert) on her husband (Gabriel Byrne), eldest son (Jesse Eisenberg) and high school-aged youngest son (Devin Druid), the film fragments its psychological melodrama across differing timelines and characters.After the premiere of Joachim Trier's film in Cannes, I was able to participate in a roundtable conversation with the director.Question: How did you arrive on the varied style of this film?Joachim Trier: My co-screenwriter Eskil Vogt and I would talk of ideas. For example, an idea we wanted to do conceptually for a scene,...
- 5/29/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
What do we know about San Diego, California? SeaWorld & Shamu. But wait, that’s not all! The San Diego Latino Film Festival is back with its 22 nd edition and they went all kindsa crazy. New venue, new vibe and jam packed with the best Latino film has to offer. As one of the last Latino film festivals still standing they really made a point to accentuate the spectrum of filmmakers coming out of Latin America and the Us. San Diego Latino has always been a favorite festival of mine as they run on community love and deserve to be celebrated. So, what happens when you abandon Chilenos, Peruanos, Mexicanos, Domincanos, Argentinos y Venezolanos on a deserted island and only allow them one book, an album, a film and a companion from the movies? Read on.
Bernardo Quesney - "Desastres Naturales" (Chile)
Book: The Cement Garden (Ian McEwan). I don´t know if this is my favorite book but it was very important in my adolescence. I felt very close to the main character. Loved by my friends and hated by our parents.
Film: "El Angel Exterminador" by Luis Buñuel. Buñuel is the film director that I want to imitate. I think he is perfect - his sense of humor, his Mexican films. Nothing is "normal" in his cinema. When I read his memoirs I felt that I knew him.
Album: Love in C Minor – Cerrone. Uff! Cerrone is the soundtrack of my everyday walk. It´s simply marvelous. When I put Cerrone in my bedroom I start to dance like John Travolta as Tony Manero. Naked or with boxers.
Companion: Raul Peralta from "Tony Manero." This is a character I feel respects life. It’s so amazing that Raul knows every phrase of that movie. Being Chilean and imitating something from a distant culture is a representation of the Chilean culture. Our nation is an imitation. It’s like we need role models.
Guillermo Zouain - "On the Road, Somewhere" (Algún lugar) (Dominican Republic)
Film: When people ask me what my favorite film is I usually tend to go for "Jaws," "Seven Samurai"or "The Royal Tenenbaums." In this case however I would have to choose "The Breakfast Club," John Hughes is a genius and this movie in particular he guarantees to keep his audience feeling happy, young and rebellious no matter what.
Album: It would be Paul Simon’s Graceland. I think surviving is all about the mood and keeping it happy in my deserted island. Graceland always makes me smile. I’ve been listening to this album since I was a kid and have never grown tired of it. The whole album has a kinetic feel that exudes, transmits and inspires movement. Paul Simon, by Paul Simon, Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan and Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround part 1 by the Kinks would follow.
Book: Palomar: the Heartbreak Soup Stories, A Love and Rockets Book by Gilbert Hernandez. The good thing about this comic book is that it will give you an array of things: length, many characters, even more details and above all drama and gossip. Palomar’s community of characters will also keep me company while rescue comes. I spent a year reading this book just because I didn’t want it to end.
Companion: I would have to go with Dr. Who, come on the guy speaks all the languages in the universe, has centuries of experience, has been in all kinds of trouble and has a time machine. His sonic screwdriver doesn’t work on wood though.
Enrica Perez - "Climas" (Peru)
Film: If you twist my arm I'd have to pick Almodovar's "Talk to Her." It's not only one of my favorites but the film has also this fate "anything-can-happen" quality and I'm such a drama lover! It would be perfect to be stuck with it on a deserted island. I would never get sick of it.
Album: Without a doubt: The Very Best of Maria Callas. The voice of this woman and the arias of this album on an island… what can I say?… I would wake up in heaven every single day.
Book: I would pick Ernesto Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs. It turned my life upside down when I first read it as a teenager and every time I've read it again I understood something completely different. This book tends to transform and change with time. It's kind of frightening and fantastic at the same time.
Companion: I read in a past quiz someone picked Mary Poppins… damn! That was a good one!!! But to avoid repetition, I would pick Indiana Jones. I mean, c'mon… do I have to explain why?
Gilberto González Penilla - "Los Hamsters" (Mexico)
Film: There are many films I consider favorites but If I had to take just one film to a deserted Island it would be "Cinema Paradiso" for the simple reason it reminds me of the love for cinema and is a film that I can tire of easily.
Album: It would be a Pink Floyd album. That would make me happy and would be perfect for a deserted island to reminisce of my adolescence.
Book: I had it in my mind to choose between a novel or a book of stories, but for the occasion the ideal book would be Notes on Cinematography by Bresson. It’s a book of small notes and thoughts by Bresson. The more I read it I find different meanings of cinema and life itself.
Companion: It would certainly be without doubt Woody Allen. He’s a director whom I admire and surely on a island it would be fun and full of anecdotes.
Humberto Hinojosa – "I Hate Love" (Mexico)
Book: Count of Monte Cristo . It was my first book when I was a child and I have very good memories of it. I enjoy it every time I read it again.
Album: The Beatles Abbey Road. I've heard it my entire life and I have never gotten tired of it. I think it works on an island. I also listen to it with my wife and kids so it would give me hope of rescue.
Companion: Wall-e. I'm sure we would be best friends forever.
Film: If I'm going to be on an island with Wall-e, I'm sure we will have a great time watching "The Party" by Peter Sellers over and over again which would be my choice of a film.
Andrea Herrera Catalá - "Nena, Saludame Al Diego" (Venezuela)
Film: It is an established fact: I can watch "Streets of Fire" five hundred times, and I'll never get bored. Besides, with this film I would bring a little more music to the island!
Companion: Rob Gordon from "High Fidelity." He is quite talkative and he could tell me tons of stories about his life, his girlfriends, the concerts he's been to... He would bring lots of records inside his head, and anecdotes and fun facts about them. It would be like having a never ending music magazine. We would compose new songs, we would do vocal jam sessions and Air Band contests... Until I wanted to kill him, or maybe the other way round.
Book: Cosimo Piovasco, Italo Calvino's Baron in the Trees. I could find new advice from Cosimo every time I read it, on how to live in peace with myself. This book has love, ideology, adventure, battles, joy and sorrow. Everything mixed up in just one big story. I recall I enjoyed a lot when I first read it. I'll let you know how is it going in reading number 1743.
Album: Bocanada by Gustavo Cerati. It is a gem, an amazing record. It is a pleasure listening to it next to the sea, lying under the sun. Cerati deserves a thousand and one tributes.
Emiliano Romero – "Topos" (Argentina)
Book: I feel the need to mention that this list changes permanently, depending entirely on my metamorphosis as a human being. Tengo Miedo Torero (My Tender Matador) by Pedro Lemebel. I would choose this book because it merges social and political reality with fiction. It depicts sensitive characters that have to cope with desires and ideologies. The book makes me want to embrace every single detail of life. It also encourages everyone to defend their right to be whatever they want to be.
Film: "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf" (The Lovers on the Bridge) by Leos Carax. This film manages to transform ugliness and pathos into beauty. Each scene makes me feel the magic of cinema. It really blows people's minds. The actors play their parts in a grotesque-acting style, yet with profound truth.
Album: Transa by Caetano Veloso. This album makes me feel happy. While I listen to it, I realize that the mixture of the different world cultures is really enlightening. Jazz, Rock, Bossa Nova, Tango, lots of talent and Latin blood.
Companion: Cosmo Kramer from TV series "Seinfeld." I would choose him because he always does what he feels. He never censors himself, nor thinks twice about things. He loves what he does and does what he loves to do, always. Besides, I think that the physical work of the actor is absolutely brilliant.
Check out the roster: http://sdlatinofilm.com/2015/
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
Bernardo Quesney - "Desastres Naturales" (Chile)
Book: The Cement Garden (Ian McEwan). I don´t know if this is my favorite book but it was very important in my adolescence. I felt very close to the main character. Loved by my friends and hated by our parents.
Film: "El Angel Exterminador" by Luis Buñuel. Buñuel is the film director that I want to imitate. I think he is perfect - his sense of humor, his Mexican films. Nothing is "normal" in his cinema. When I read his memoirs I felt that I knew him.
Album: Love in C Minor – Cerrone. Uff! Cerrone is the soundtrack of my everyday walk. It´s simply marvelous. When I put Cerrone in my bedroom I start to dance like John Travolta as Tony Manero. Naked or with boxers.
Companion: Raul Peralta from "Tony Manero." This is a character I feel respects life. It’s so amazing that Raul knows every phrase of that movie. Being Chilean and imitating something from a distant culture is a representation of the Chilean culture. Our nation is an imitation. It’s like we need role models.
Guillermo Zouain - "On the Road, Somewhere" (Algún lugar) (Dominican Republic)
Film: When people ask me what my favorite film is I usually tend to go for "Jaws," "Seven Samurai"or "The Royal Tenenbaums." In this case however I would have to choose "The Breakfast Club," John Hughes is a genius and this movie in particular he guarantees to keep his audience feeling happy, young and rebellious no matter what.
Album: It would be Paul Simon’s Graceland. I think surviving is all about the mood and keeping it happy in my deserted island. Graceland always makes me smile. I’ve been listening to this album since I was a kid and have never grown tired of it. The whole album has a kinetic feel that exudes, transmits and inspires movement. Paul Simon, by Paul Simon, Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan and Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround part 1 by the Kinks would follow.
Book: Palomar: the Heartbreak Soup Stories, A Love and Rockets Book by Gilbert Hernandez. The good thing about this comic book is that it will give you an array of things: length, many characters, even more details and above all drama and gossip. Palomar’s community of characters will also keep me company while rescue comes. I spent a year reading this book just because I didn’t want it to end.
Companion: I would have to go with Dr. Who, come on the guy speaks all the languages in the universe, has centuries of experience, has been in all kinds of trouble and has a time machine. His sonic screwdriver doesn’t work on wood though.
Enrica Perez - "Climas" (Peru)
Film: If you twist my arm I'd have to pick Almodovar's "Talk to Her." It's not only one of my favorites but the film has also this fate "anything-can-happen" quality and I'm such a drama lover! It would be perfect to be stuck with it on a deserted island. I would never get sick of it.
Album: Without a doubt: The Very Best of Maria Callas. The voice of this woman and the arias of this album on an island… what can I say?… I would wake up in heaven every single day.
Book: I would pick Ernesto Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs. It turned my life upside down when I first read it as a teenager and every time I've read it again I understood something completely different. This book tends to transform and change with time. It's kind of frightening and fantastic at the same time.
Companion: I read in a past quiz someone picked Mary Poppins… damn! That was a good one!!! But to avoid repetition, I would pick Indiana Jones. I mean, c'mon… do I have to explain why?
Gilberto González Penilla - "Los Hamsters" (Mexico)
Film: There are many films I consider favorites but If I had to take just one film to a deserted Island it would be "Cinema Paradiso" for the simple reason it reminds me of the love for cinema and is a film that I can tire of easily.
Album: It would be a Pink Floyd album. That would make me happy and would be perfect for a deserted island to reminisce of my adolescence.
Book: I had it in my mind to choose between a novel or a book of stories, but for the occasion the ideal book would be Notes on Cinematography by Bresson. It’s a book of small notes and thoughts by Bresson. The more I read it I find different meanings of cinema and life itself.
Companion: It would certainly be without doubt Woody Allen. He’s a director whom I admire and surely on a island it would be fun and full of anecdotes.
Humberto Hinojosa – "I Hate Love" (Mexico)
Book: Count of Monte Cristo . It was my first book when I was a child and I have very good memories of it. I enjoy it every time I read it again.
Album: The Beatles Abbey Road. I've heard it my entire life and I have never gotten tired of it. I think it works on an island. I also listen to it with my wife and kids so it would give me hope of rescue.
Companion: Wall-e. I'm sure we would be best friends forever.
Film: If I'm going to be on an island with Wall-e, I'm sure we will have a great time watching "The Party" by Peter Sellers over and over again which would be my choice of a film.
Andrea Herrera Catalá - "Nena, Saludame Al Diego" (Venezuela)
Film: It is an established fact: I can watch "Streets of Fire" five hundred times, and I'll never get bored. Besides, with this film I would bring a little more music to the island!
Companion: Rob Gordon from "High Fidelity." He is quite talkative and he could tell me tons of stories about his life, his girlfriends, the concerts he's been to... He would bring lots of records inside his head, and anecdotes and fun facts about them. It would be like having a never ending music magazine. We would compose new songs, we would do vocal jam sessions and Air Band contests... Until I wanted to kill him, or maybe the other way round.
Book: Cosimo Piovasco, Italo Calvino's Baron in the Trees. I could find new advice from Cosimo every time I read it, on how to live in peace with myself. This book has love, ideology, adventure, battles, joy and sorrow. Everything mixed up in just one big story. I recall I enjoyed a lot when I first read it. I'll let you know how is it going in reading number 1743.
Album: Bocanada by Gustavo Cerati. It is a gem, an amazing record. It is a pleasure listening to it next to the sea, lying under the sun. Cerati deserves a thousand and one tributes.
Emiliano Romero – "Topos" (Argentina)
Book: I feel the need to mention that this list changes permanently, depending entirely on my metamorphosis as a human being. Tengo Miedo Torero (My Tender Matador) by Pedro Lemebel. I would choose this book because it merges social and political reality with fiction. It depicts sensitive characters that have to cope with desires and ideologies. The book makes me want to embrace every single detail of life. It also encourages everyone to defend their right to be whatever they want to be.
Film: "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf" (The Lovers on the Bridge) by Leos Carax. This film manages to transform ugliness and pathos into beauty. Each scene makes me feel the magic of cinema. It really blows people's minds. The actors play their parts in a grotesque-acting style, yet with profound truth.
Album: Transa by Caetano Veloso. This album makes me feel happy. While I listen to it, I realize that the mixture of the different world cultures is really enlightening. Jazz, Rock, Bossa Nova, Tango, lots of talent and Latin blood.
Companion: Cosmo Kramer from TV series "Seinfeld." I would choose him because he always does what he feels. He never censors himself, nor thinks twice about things. He loves what he does and does what he loves to do, always. Besides, I think that the physical work of the actor is absolutely brilliant.
Check out the roster: http://sdlatinofilm.com/2015/
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
- 3/19/2015
- by Juan Caceres
- Sydney's Buzz
Editor's Note: RogerEbert.com is proud to reprint Roger Ebert's 1978 entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica publication "The Great Ideas Today," part of "The Great Books of the Western World." Reprinted with permission from The Great Ideas Today ©1978 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
- 2/12/2015
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Luis Buñuel movies on TCM tonight (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de Jour') The city of Paris and iconoclastic writer-director Luis Buñuel are Turner Classic Movies' themes today and later this evening. TCM's focus on Luis Buñuel is particularly welcome, as he remains one of the most daring and most challenging filmmakers since the invention of film. Luis Buñuel is so remarkable, in fact, that you won't find any Hollywood hipster paying homage to him in his/her movies. Nor will you hear his name mentioned at the Academy Awards – no matter the Academy in question. And rest assured that most film critics working today have never even heard of him, let alone seen any of his movies. So, nowadays Luis Buñuel is un-hip, un-cool, and unfashionable. He's also unquestionably brilliant. These days everyone is worried about freedom of expression. The clash of civilizations. The West vs. The Other.
- 1/27/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
L’Avventura
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, and Tonino Guerra
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy, 1960
Michelangelo Antonioni’s enigmatic and brilliant L’Avventura is one of the benchmarks for international art cinema, a somewhat disputable designation that was, nevertheless, very much in vogue at the time of its release. Take the 1960 Cannes Film Festival for example, where L’Avventura debuted to one of the event’s most divisive responses, with initially more boos than cheers greeting this affront to conventional film narrative and form. Yet, this was also the year of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (the Palme d’Or winner), Chukhray’s Ballad of a Soldier, Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent, and Buñuel’s The Young One, to name just a few of the other titles at the festival, where, ultimately, L’Avventura came away with the Jury Prize (shared with Ichikawa’s...
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, and Tonino Guerra
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy, 1960
Michelangelo Antonioni’s enigmatic and brilliant L’Avventura is one of the benchmarks for international art cinema, a somewhat disputable designation that was, nevertheless, very much in vogue at the time of its release. Take the 1960 Cannes Film Festival for example, where L’Avventura debuted to one of the event’s most divisive responses, with initially more boos than cheers greeting this affront to conventional film narrative and form. Yet, this was also the year of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (the Palme d’Or winner), Chukhray’s Ballad of a Soldier, Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent, and Buñuel’s The Young One, to name just a few of the other titles at the festival, where, ultimately, L’Avventura came away with the Jury Prize (shared with Ichikawa’s...
- 12/11/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Our 2014 Honorary Oscar tribute series continues with a two-part look at the long fascinating career of Jean-Claude Carrière. Here's Tim with Part Two.
Yesterday, Amir did a wonderful job of introducing us to the supremely gifted and abnormally prolific Jean-Claude Carrière, focusing on his iconic collaboration with Luis Buñuel. As important as that work was for both men, it tells only a fraction of the tale. With nearly a hundred screenplays to his credit in a career that’s still holding steady, 54 years on, it’s simply not possible to reduce the full scope of Carrière’s contribution to cinema to his work just one collaborator.
And so we now turn to Carrière's writing in the years following Buñuel’s death. Given the transgressive, ultra-modern nature of their films together, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that Carrière’s output from the ‘80s to the present would be dominated by...
Yesterday, Amir did a wonderful job of introducing us to the supremely gifted and abnormally prolific Jean-Claude Carrière, focusing on his iconic collaboration with Luis Buñuel. As important as that work was for both men, it tells only a fraction of the tale. With nearly a hundred screenplays to his credit in a career that’s still holding steady, 54 years on, it’s simply not possible to reduce the full scope of Carrière’s contribution to cinema to his work just one collaborator.
And so we now turn to Carrière's writing in the years following Buñuel’s death. Given the transgressive, ultra-modern nature of their films together, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that Carrière’s output from the ‘80s to the present would be dominated by...
- 11/5/2014
- by Tim Brayton
- FilmExperience
François Truffaut was a big fan of Luis Buñuel films; he had always admired him as one of the greatest auteurs of cinema and in fact they managed to meet each other many times, starting in 1953. But before talking about their meetings, let’s see what Truffaut has said and written about Buñuel.
In his book The Films in My Life, Truffaut wrote: “Luis Buñuel is, perhaps, somewhere between Renoir and Bergman. One would gather that Buñuel finds mankind imbecilic but life diverting. All this he tells us very mildly, even a bit indirectly, but it's there in the overall impression we get from his films.”1
Truffaut also met Buñuel in 1957 when he and Jacques Rivette were doing a series of interviews. In addition to that interview request letter, Truffaut wrote letters, or at least one, to him dated 1963 and closed it as follow:
“I have heard from Jeanne Moreau...
In his book The Films in My Life, Truffaut wrote: “Luis Buñuel is, perhaps, somewhere between Renoir and Bergman. One would gather that Buñuel finds mankind imbecilic but life diverting. All this he tells us very mildly, even a bit indirectly, but it's there in the overall impression we get from his films.”1
Truffaut also met Buñuel in 1957 when he and Jacques Rivette were doing a series of interviews. In addition to that interview request letter, Truffaut wrote letters, or at least one, to him dated 1963 and closed it as follow:
“I have heard from Jeanne Moreau...
- 10/28/2014
- by Hossein Eidizadeh
- MUBI
Sidney And The Sixties: Real-time 1957-1966
Throughout the 1950s, Hollywood’s relationship with television was fraught: TV was a hated rival but also a source of cheap talent and material, as in the case of the small-scale Marty (1955), which won the Best Picture Oscar. These contradictions were well represented by the apparently “televisual” 12 Angry Men (1957), which began life as a teleplay concerning a jury with a lone holdout who must, and eventually does, convince his fellow jurors of the defendant’s innocence. Its writer, Reginald Rose, persuaded one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Henry Fonda, to become a first-time producer of the film version. Fonda and Rose took basement-low salaries in favor of future points, and hired a TV director, Sidney Lumet, for next to nothing because Lumet wanted a first feature credit. Technically, there’s an opening bit on the courtroom steps that keeps this from being a true real-time film,...
Throughout the 1950s, Hollywood’s relationship with television was fraught: TV was a hated rival but also a source of cheap talent and material, as in the case of the small-scale Marty (1955), which won the Best Picture Oscar. These contradictions were well represented by the apparently “televisual” 12 Angry Men (1957), which began life as a teleplay concerning a jury with a lone holdout who must, and eventually does, convince his fellow jurors of the defendant’s innocence. Its writer, Reginald Rose, persuaded one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Henry Fonda, to become a first-time producer of the film version. Fonda and Rose took basement-low salaries in favor of future points, and hired a TV director, Sidney Lumet, for next to nothing because Lumet wanted a first feature credit. Technically, there’s an opening bit on the courtroom steps that keeps this from being a true real-time film,...
- 10/18/2014
- by Daniel Smith-Rowsey
- SoundOnSight
The Fall of the House of Usher
Directed by Jean Epstein
Written by Jean Epstein, Luis Buñuel, and Edgar Allen Poe
France, 1928
It’s hard to imagine that the house of Usher actually acts as a “house”. There’s very little in terms of warm, domestic quality about it: the halls are long and foreboding, the rooms are empty and grand, and it doesn’t seem accustomed to guests. Rather, its ornate decorations and intense lighting suggest something more of an Arthurian castle, full of fairy-tale supernatural qualities lurking in its grounds. Villagers shy away and whisper to themselves when someone utters the name “Usher”; a lone dog runs away at the property’s perimeter — the house’s haunted aura pervades anything that even dares think about it.
An unnamed visitor rides to this doomed estate of the demented Usher for little explained reason (not uncommon for the actions from...
Directed by Jean Epstein
Written by Jean Epstein, Luis Buñuel, and Edgar Allen Poe
France, 1928
It’s hard to imagine that the house of Usher actually acts as a “house”. There’s very little in terms of warm, domestic quality about it: the halls are long and foreboding, the rooms are empty and grand, and it doesn’t seem accustomed to guests. Rather, its ornate decorations and intense lighting suggest something more of an Arthurian castle, full of fairy-tale supernatural qualities lurking in its grounds. Villagers shy away and whisper to themselves when someone utters the name “Usher”; a lone dog runs away at the property’s perimeter — the house’s haunted aura pervades anything that even dares think about it.
An unnamed visitor rides to this doomed estate of the demented Usher for little explained reason (not uncommon for the actions from...
- 10/3/2014
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
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