When the 44th edition of the Festival du Nouveau Cinema announced their lineup two weeks ago, I wasn’t sure where to even begin when deciding what I should see. The festival which takes place in Montreal from October 7 to 18 is screening nearly 400 films and events in only 11 days. This includes 151 feature films and 203 short films from 68 countries – 49 world premieres, 38 North American premieres and 60 Canadian premieres. Because of it’s strong line-up, there is no possible way to see everything – so we decided to come up with a list of our ten most anticipated films — and trust me, it wasn’t easy. We will of course be covering the event once again this year, so be sure to revisit our site over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here is our 10 most anticipate films.
Arabian Nights
With a total running time of over six hours Arabian Nights is certainly...
Arabian Nights
With a total running time of over six hours Arabian Nights is certainly...
- 10/8/2015
- by Staff
- SoundOnSight
Read More: Review: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Dreamy 'Mekong Hotel' Outlines an Unrealized Project Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been generating acclaim on the film festival circuit ever since his 2002 debut "Blissfully Yours," which he followed up with "Tropical Malady" and "Syndromes and a Century." The director’s interplay of mythological reference points, structural trickery and allegorical riffs on Thailand’s complex history had no real precedent. But it wasn’t until 2010’s "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival that Apichatpong became a global sensation. A delicate tale of reincarnation and mystical beings, the movie also tapped into national trauma associated with the 1965 military crackdown on communist sympathizers. Needless to say, the soft-spoken director has never had an easy relationship with his country’s government, and the situation hasn’t improved...
- 9/30/2015
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
When Apichatpong Weerasethakul's new film premiered it Cannes, it was like someone just opened the window and let in some much-needed fresh air into the festival. Relegated in a detail of obscure festival politics to the second-tier Un Certain Regard section, where in recent years such too-adventurous works like Jean-Luc Godard's Film socialisme and Claire Denis's Bastards were shunted aside, I came to Cemetery of Splendour assuming the director was going to follow-up on his Palme d'Or of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives with something as grand if not grander, and as bizarre if not even more bizarre. I should have known Apichatpong would move in mysterious ways and defy expectations.A small, humble film, in fact the most constricted of his full features, Cemetery of Splendour rather than working the surface of story, the surface of space, and the surface of drama and reality,...
- 5/26/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
I keep waiting for a truly great film here in Cannes, an expectation and a hope for something really striking that is undoubtably a terrible attitude to take towards this festival and film in general. (Then again, a friend and Cannes regular, when I despondently shared these thoughts, told me that it is this hope that keeps her coming back, and that without it, indeed, why even go to the movies?) With this forlorn need haunting me by the fourth day, I was rightly chastised by the first of three films by the Portuguese director of Tabu, Miguel Gomes, in the Directors' Fortnight, a trilogy titled Arabian Nights. It is not a great film, but, abashed, I think it was the kind of film I needed, a lesson not to expect masterpieces, or perfection, but proof yet again that cinema is permeable, its beauties and faults can and should leak.
- 5/18/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
While many arthouse filmmakers sometimes use critical acclaim to leap to working with bigger stars or on movies with larger budgets, Apichatpong Weerasethakul seems content for now to carve his own distinct path. After his Palme d'Or win in 2010 for "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," the director has knocked out a stream of shorts, along with the one-hour "Mekong Hotel," which hit Cannes in 2012. Now he's back three years later with the feature length "Cemetery Of Splendour," unspooling in the Un Certain Regard slot at Cannes. Following the first couple of clips, a brand new trailer has arrived. Read More: Watch 3 Clips From Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cannes Bound 'Cemetery Of Splendour' And no big surprise for fans of Weerasethakul, this features more of his patient, beautiful work, and doesn't reveal anything in terms of plot. He reteams with Jenjira Pongpas ("Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives...
- 5/16/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, or “Joe” as he’s been amusingly nicknamed, has been a presence on the global film stage with Tropical Malady and Syndromes of a Century, but back in 2010 he finally won the Palme D’Or with his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Now in 2015, his latest film is his first full feature (2012’s Mekong Hotel clocked in at only 61 minutes) since winning five years earlier.
Cemetery of Splendour (originally titled Love in Khon Kaen) is strictly art house, and this first clip prior to its premiere at Cannes, not in Competition but in the Un Certain Regard lineup, is a good example of Weerasethakul’s patient style. Here’s the full synopsis:
Love in Khon Kaen tells of a lonesome middle-age housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance.
No U.S.
Cemetery of Splendour (originally titled Love in Khon Kaen) is strictly art house, and this first clip prior to its premiere at Cannes, not in Competition but in the Un Certain Regard lineup, is a good example of Weerasethakul’s patient style. Here’s the full synopsis:
Love in Khon Kaen tells of a lonesome middle-age housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance.
No U.S.
- 5/13/2015
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
Love in Khon Kaen
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul // Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Though he premiered a medium length film at Cannes 2012, Mekong Hotel, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul hasn’t debuted a feature length since his 2010 Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. His latest, Love in the Khon Kaen (formerly known as a project called Cemetery of Kings) promises to be another mystical enigma from the provocative director, described as a film about a lonesome middle-age housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance. Weersethakul collaborates once more with familiar castmembers, including Jenjira Pongpas (Boonmee; Syndromes and a Century) and Banlop Lomnoi (Tropical Malady).
Cast: Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi
Producers: Kick the Machine Films’ Simon Field (Mekong Hotel), Illumination Films’ Keith Griffiths (Berberian Sound Studio)
U.S. Distributor: Rights available
Release Date: Apparently in post-production,...
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul // Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Though he premiered a medium length film at Cannes 2012, Mekong Hotel, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul hasn’t debuted a feature length since his 2010 Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. His latest, Love in the Khon Kaen (formerly known as a project called Cemetery of Kings) promises to be another mystical enigma from the provocative director, described as a film about a lonesome middle-age housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance. Weersethakul collaborates once more with familiar castmembers, including Jenjira Pongpas (Boonmee; Syndromes and a Century) and Banlop Lomnoi (Tropical Malady).
Cast: Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi
Producers: Kick the Machine Films’ Simon Field (Mekong Hotel), Illumination Films’ Keith Griffiths (Berberian Sound Studio)
U.S. Distributor: Rights available
Release Date: Apparently in post-production,...
- 1/7/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Cemetery of Kings
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producers: Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jenjira Widner, Banlop
It surprisingly takes an international film community (coin coming from several sources) to keep Palme d’Or winner Thai Joe (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) in business of feature filmmaking but it takes very little to motivate him as an artist: his generous output is visible in art installations, short films, to medium-sized items such as Mekong Hotel. While this appears to raid from his chest of films from his last decade and certainly brings a vague sense of familiarity with performance, obsessions, and use of physical borders, Cemetery of Kings might be the last of film to come out of a certain comfort zone.
Gist: A small town in Thailand, twenty-seven soldiers come down with a strange case of sleeping sickness.
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producers: Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jenjira Widner, Banlop
It surprisingly takes an international film community (coin coming from several sources) to keep Palme d’Or winner Thai Joe (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) in business of feature filmmaking but it takes very little to motivate him as an artist: his generous output is visible in art installations, short films, to medium-sized items such as Mekong Hotel. While this appears to raid from his chest of films from his last decade and certainly brings a vague sense of familiarity with performance, obsessions, and use of physical borders, Cemetery of Kings might be the last of film to come out of a certain comfort zone.
Gist: A small town in Thailand, twenty-seven soldiers come down with a strange case of sleeping sickness.
- 2/14/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who won Palme d’Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives, has a new job! We’ve just learned that Weerasethakul is seeking financing and production partners for his next project titled Cemetery of Kings, which means we’ll soon have another powerful story that will (this time) take us to the “dream-land”. An official entry at the Asia Film Financing Forum at Filmart, Cemetery of Kings story is set in a small town on the Mekong River in northern Thailand, where 27 soldiers come down with a strange sleeping sickness. According to THR, Apichatpong is...
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Related posts: Cannes 2010: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Cannes 2012: Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Steven Spielberg to Direct Gods And Kings Moses Film...
Click to continue reading Uncle Boonmee Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul Next Film Cemetery Of Kings on | FilmoFilia
Related posts: Cannes 2010: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Cannes 2012: Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Steven Spielberg to Direct Gods And Kings Moses Film...
- 3/31/2013
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
It's coming on three years since filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul bewitched audiences with his strange, cryptic and beautiful Palme d'Or-winning "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives." The movie became a critical darling, and as much as a movie can that features fish sex, it brought the director to a broader international audience. But the filmmaker hasn't been in a hurry to make a followup, and over the past couple of years has been focused on art installations and shorts (including the rather tepid "Mekong Hotel" which played Cannes last year), but it looks like he's now ready to tackle another feature. THR reveals that Weerasethakul is now seeking financing and production partners for "Cemetery Of Kings," a project that sounds exactly like something you would expect from the director. 'Boonmee' & "Syndromes & A Century" star Jenjira Widner will play a nurse who cares for 27 soldiers who suffer from sleeping sickness in a town along the Mekong.
- 3/29/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
What follows is an exchange between Josh Timmermann (a fellow critic and Vancouver resident, who you may recall from this) and I, wherein we discuss the Vancouver International Film Festival and its individual parts, a chance to color outside the lines a bit and discuss the ins and outs of our festival experiences.
Context!
Above: Granville 7 Theatre, Viff's primary venue.
Adam Cook: I’ve been attending Viff since 2008—and you’ve been attending since 2007—so it seems kind of safe to say we’re well on our way to being veterans of the festival; although, this claim is humbled when encountering someone like Chuck Stephens—a member of this year’s Dragons & Tigers jury—who has been coming (from out of town, no less) for something like twenty years. However, five years of Viff-going has equipped me with a knack for knowing how to approach the festival, how to navigate the programming—and,...
Context!
Above: Granville 7 Theatre, Viff's primary venue.
Adam Cook: I’ve been attending Viff since 2008—and you’ve been attending since 2007—so it seems kind of safe to say we’re well on our way to being veterans of the festival; although, this claim is humbled when encountering someone like Chuck Stephens—a member of this year’s Dragons & Tigers jury—who has been coming (from out of town, no less) for something like twenty years. However, five years of Viff-going has equipped me with a knack for knowing how to approach the festival, how to navigate the programming—and,...
- 11/8/2012
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
The 17th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk) has announced its lineup. The festival will run from 7th to 14th December, 2012 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Some of the highlights of the lineup are festival favourites of the year Amour, Chitrangada, Samhita, The Sapphires, Drapchi, Miss Lovely, Me and You, Celluloid Man, and Baandhon.
Fourteen films will screen in the Competition section while seven contemporary films will be screened in “Indian Cinema Now” section.
Complete list of films:
Competition Films
Fourteen feature films from Asia, Africa and Latin America will compete for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasant) and other awards.
Always Brando by Ridha Behi (Tunisia)
Inheritors of the Earth by T V Chandran (India)
A Terminal Trust by by Masayuki Suo (Japan)
Shutter by Joy Mathew (India)
Today by Alain Gomis (Senegal-France)
The Repentant by Merzak Allouache (Algeria)
Sta. Niña by Manny Palo (Philippines)
Present Tense...
Some of the highlights of the lineup are festival favourites of the year Amour, Chitrangada, Samhita, The Sapphires, Drapchi, Miss Lovely, Me and You, Celluloid Man, and Baandhon.
Fourteen films will screen in the Competition section while seven contemporary films will be screened in “Indian Cinema Now” section.
Complete list of films:
Competition Films
Fourteen feature films from Asia, Africa and Latin America will compete for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasant) and other awards.
Always Brando by Ridha Behi (Tunisia)
Inheritors of the Earth by T V Chandran (India)
A Terminal Trust by by Masayuki Suo (Japan)
Shutter by Joy Mathew (India)
Today by Alain Gomis (Senegal-France)
The Repentant by Merzak Allouache (Algeria)
Sta. Niña by Manny Palo (Philippines)
Present Tense...
- 11/2/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
★★★☆☆ When it comes to impenetrable arthouse fare, Thai indie auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul is widely regarded as something of a master. Two years ago, he arrived in London triumphantly with his Palme d'Or for the majestic Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) and has returned this year with the not-quite-feature-length oddity, Mekong Hotel (2012), which rightly features in the Lff's 'Experimenta' stream. Weerasethakul's latest lingers instead on a series of moments all taking place around the titular hostelry sat on the bank of the enormous river which separates Thailand from Laos.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 10/16/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
While his next full length still seems to be a bit of a way off, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul -- best known for "Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall Past Lives," "Syndromes and a Century" and "Tropical Malady" -- continues to work at a feverish pace, delivering numerous shorts since his Palme d'Or win a couple of years back. In fact, he was back at Cannes earlier this year with "Mekong Hotel," which is still doing the festival rounds and now fans of the filmmaker have another work to take in. The director has unveiled "Cactus River," another work which finds him blending the personal with his own expressive brand of filmmaking. Here's the synopsis -- watch below: In describing Cactus River, Weerasethkul tells the story of how actress Jenjira Pongpas changed her name to Nach, which means water. She has acted in his films since 2009, including Syndromes and a Century and Uncle Boonmee,...
- 10/15/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
As I mentioned in the preface to the first part of my Wavelengths preview (the one focusing on the short films), there are significant changes afoot in 2012. Until last year, the festival had a section known as Visions, which was the primary home for formally challenging cinema that nevertheless conformed to the basic tenets of arthouse and/or “festival” cinema (actors, scripting, 70+minute running time, and, once upon a time, 35mm presentation). This year, Wavelengths is both its former self, and it also contains the sort of work that Visions most likely would have housed. While in some respects this can seem to result in a kind of split personality for the section, it also means that Wavelengths, which has often been described as a sort of “festival within the festival,” has moved front and center. Films that would’ve occupied single slots in the older avant-Wavelengths model, like the...
- 9/12/2012
- MUBI
The 56th BFI London Film Festival will screen a total of 225 fiction and documentary features, 111 live action and animated shorts, including 14 World Premieres, 15 International Premieres, and 34 European Premieres. Tim Burton's 3-D animated "Frankenweenie" will open the festival and Mike Newell's dramatic adaptation of "Great Expectations" with Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes will close the 11 day event, which runs from October 10 to the 21st. Highlights of the festival include the world premiere of Bret Morgan's "Crossfire Hurricane," a documentary spanning fifty years of the Rolling Stones, who are rumored to attend the festival. London will also host Cannes entry Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Mekong Hotel," Dustin Hoffman's Toronto directorial debut, "Quartet," and author Salman Rushdie, whose Telluride title "Midnight's Children" is in the Festival's inaugural...
- 9/5/2012
- by Maggie Lange
- Thompson on Hollywood
Above: Ernie Gehr's Auto-Collider Xv.
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
- 8/22/2012
- MUBI
By merging the former Visions into the Wavelengths section, Cameron Bailey has essentially made a new incontournable programme. Headed by Andréa Picard, the section which at a time was populated by medium to short run times now includes some of the bigger names in innovative feature film filmmaking who have no qualms about bending the medium. This year the sections includes long, medium and short length works from the likes of Ben Rivers, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Carlos Reygadas (pic of his controversial Post Tenebras Lux above), Wang Bing, Mati Diop (actress from Claire Denis and Antonio Campos films) and our very own writer Blake Williams who makes it two for two at Tiff with Many a Swan – he previously had Coorow-Latham Road programmed last year. Here’s the complete A to Z listing and well-worth reading descriptions.
Pairings
The Capsule Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, 37’ A bevy of gorgeous Gothic...
Pairings
The Capsule Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, 37’ A bevy of gorgeous Gothic...
- 8/14/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Some may be surprised to hear Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a mere three months after Mekong Hotel premiered at Cannes, would be right in the midst of crafting his next project — then again, that’s just his working pattern. While there are seven features to his name (including this year’s outing), the Thai auteur works at a pretty incredible pace, constantly cranking out shorts, art installations, museum projects, and other efforts that just skirt the line of being “film works.”
But, that eighth film is coming to light. An interview with IndieWIRE shed the first light on his current film, an untitled project rooted in, of all things, the world of sleep; Weerasethakul‘s subjects, this time out, are those who suffer from sleeping sicknesses, while the actual depiction will focus on “how their mind works during that specific time, how light can influence their dreams and memory.” (We need to go deeper.
But, that eighth film is coming to light. An interview with IndieWIRE shed the first light on his current film, an untitled project rooted in, of all things, the world of sleep; Weerasethakul‘s subjects, this time out, are those who suffer from sleeping sicknesses, while the actual depiction will focus on “how their mind works during that specific time, how light can influence their dreams and memory.” (We need to go deeper.
- 8/10/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Two years after winning the Palme d’Or, Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul returned to Cannes. It was a rare sort of visit, in which he didn’t go home with any awards, having won three major prizes with Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century and of course Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. He was there with his new film Mekong Hotel, too small and resistant to categorization to neatly fit within any of Cannes’ proper sections. Now, he’s at the 65th Locarno Film Festival with Mekong and his new short film Sakda, but as the president of the Concorso Internazionale jury. Having served as a member of the main competition jury at Cannes in 2008, and in Venice just last year as head of the Orizzonti jury, he’s been to just about every festival you can name and in myriad roles. At the age of 42, he...
- 8/9/2012
- by Adam Cook
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Locarno Film Festival has carved out a role for itself since Olivier Père took over three years ago, in which it offers the best of all festival worlds. Acting as perhaps the best cross-section of contemporary cinema—or something very close to it—available on the festival circuit, it has often been described as one of the true “cinephilic” fests. Additionally, in order to make this possible, Locarno still needs to be something of a hotspot, and the “glamor” that makes such a reputation possible is also a key component. However, Locarno manages to avoid being an industry-driven media frenzy like Cannes. Essentially, you get to have your cake and eat it too; plus: the view. As one of eight members of the Critics Academy this year (young film critics chosen from around the world to cover Locarno), I’m lucky enough to be able to take in the...
- 8/6/2012
- by Adam Cook
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The 12th Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival, New Delhi (27 July to 5 August 2012) will open with Japanese director Keiichi Sato’s “Asura” and close with Rituparno Ghosh’s “Chitragandha”.
Festival announced its competition lineup and highlights on Wednesday.
According to the official press release the festival will present 15 World premieres, 8 International premieres, 104 Indian premieres and 13 Asian premieres from China, Estonia, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Morocco and Algeria among other Asian and Arab countries.
Films In Competition
Asian & Arab
1. Death For Sale (Mort à Vendre)/Faouzi Bensaidi, Morocco, France, Belgium, United Arab Emirates
2011/India Premiere
2. Ex Press (Ex Press)/Jet Leyco, Philippines 2011/India Premiere
3. Headshot (Fon Tok Kuen Fah)/Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Thailand 2011/India Premiere
4. Highway (Autobahn)/Deepak Rauniyar, Nepal, USA 2011/Asia Premiere
5. Inside (Yeralti)/Zeki Demirkubuz, Turkey 2012/Asia Premiere
6. Mekong Hotel/Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, UK 2012/India Premiere
7. Milocrorze: A Love Story (Mirokurôze)/Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Japan 2011/India...
Festival announced its competition lineup and highlights on Wednesday.
According to the official press release the festival will present 15 World premieres, 8 International premieres, 104 Indian premieres and 13 Asian premieres from China, Estonia, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Morocco and Algeria among other Asian and Arab countries.
Films In Competition
Asian & Arab
1. Death For Sale (Mort à Vendre)/Faouzi Bensaidi, Morocco, France, Belgium, United Arab Emirates
2011/India Premiere
2. Ex Press (Ex Press)/Jet Leyco, Philippines 2011/India Premiere
3. Headshot (Fon Tok Kuen Fah)/Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Thailand 2011/India Premiere
4. Highway (Autobahn)/Deepak Rauniyar, Nepal, USA 2011/Asia Premiere
5. Inside (Yeralti)/Zeki Demirkubuz, Turkey 2012/Asia Premiere
6. Mekong Hotel/Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, UK 2012/India Premiere
7. Milocrorze: A Love Story (Mirokurôze)/Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Japan 2011/India...
- 7/12/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
The official juries for the 65th Festival del film Locarno have been appointed. The jury for the International Competition will include the American screenwriter, producer and director Roger Avary (Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, 1994; The Laws of Attraction, 2002), Seoul filmmaker Sang-soo Im (A Good Lawyer’s Wife, 2003; The Housemaid, 2010), French director, screenwriter and actress Noémie Lvovsky (La vie ne me fait pas peur, Silver Leopard “Youth Cinema” at Locarno in 1999; Camille redouble, 2012; Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen, 2012) and London-based Swiss curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London since 2006.
The jury president will be Thai filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Palme d’or at Cannes in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives). Around twenty feature films will screen in competition.
The president of the jury for the ‘Filmmakers of the Present’ Competition will be the director from Chad Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Saison sèche,...
The jury president will be Thai filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Palme d’or at Cannes in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives). Around twenty feature films will screen in competition.
The president of the jury for the ‘Filmmakers of the Present’ Competition will be the director from Chad Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Saison sèche,...
- 6/28/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Two years ago Apichatpong Weerasethakul brought a feature film to the Festival de Cannes and walked away with one of the most adventurous Palme d'Ors ever given out. He returned to the Croisette in 2012 to present two shorter projects: the mini-feature Mekong Hotel, assembled from slivers of an unproduced feature project and combined with other ideas, and Ashes, a short film shot on the LomoKino camera and part of a collaboration between the filmmaker, Lomography and Mubi. (Ashes is now playing for free on Mubi.) I had a chance to sit down and chat with Apichatpong behind the noisy fervor of the Short Film Corner, deep, deep under the festival's palais right after he'd addressed a crowd of young filmmakers.
Daniel Kasman: I overheard two anecdotes from your master class in the Short Film Corner...one was a warning about not making films while in love?
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: [Laughs] Yes.
Daniel Kasman: I overheard two anecdotes from your master class in the Short Film Corner...one was a warning about not making films while in love?
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: [Laughs] Yes.
- 6/5/2012
- MUBI
Favorites
01
Student (Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan)
Runaway Train (Andrey Konchalovsky, USA, 1986)
For Love's Sake (Takashi Miike, Japan)
02
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, Austria)
La Noche de enfrente (Raúl Ruiz, Chile)
In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (Alain Resnais, France)
Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, Canada)
Gangs of Wasseypur (Anurag Kashyap, India)
11/25 The Day Mishima Chose His Fate (Kôji Wakamatsu, Japan)
03
Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, Japan)
Sueño y silencio (Jaime Roslaes, Spain)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France)
04
Mekong Hotel (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
After the Battle (Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt)
The Rest
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, USA)
Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria)
White Elephant (Pablo Trapero, Argentina)
Dario Argento Dracula (Dario Argento, Italy)
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, USA)
Journal de France (Claudine Nougaret / Raymond Depardon, France)
À perdre la raison (Joachim Lafosse, Belgium)
In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa, Belarus/Russia/Latvia/Germany/Netherlands)
Least Favorite
Reality (Matteo Garrone,...
01
Student (Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan)
Runaway Train (Andrey Konchalovsky, USA, 1986)
For Love's Sake (Takashi Miike, Japan)
02
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, Austria)
La Noche de enfrente (Raúl Ruiz, Chile)
In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (Alain Resnais, France)
Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, Canada)
Gangs of Wasseypur (Anurag Kashyap, India)
11/25 The Day Mishima Chose His Fate (Kôji Wakamatsu, Japan)
03
Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, Japan)
Sueño y silencio (Jaime Roslaes, Spain)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France)
04
Mekong Hotel (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
After the Battle (Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt)
The Rest
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, USA)
Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria)
White Elephant (Pablo Trapero, Argentina)
Dario Argento Dracula (Dario Argento, Italy)
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, USA)
Journal de France (Claudine Nougaret / Raymond Depardon, France)
À perdre la raison (Joachim Lafosse, Belgium)
In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa, Belarus/Russia/Latvia/Germany/Netherlands)
Least Favorite
Reality (Matteo Garrone,...
- 5/28/2012
- MUBI
This year at the Notebook, we're not going to be rounding up everything being said about Cannes—an "old" friend is doing a great job of that elsewhere—but we're still following the festival closely, and will be posting updates on some of the pieces we've enjoyed reading.
The 65th Cannes Film Festival kicked off with the latest work in symmetrical, dollhouse-cinema from Wes Anderson—his first to play there. In most corners of cinephilia, the debate over his merits as an auteur persist, but the word on Moonrise Kingdom has thus far been decidedly positive. Robert Koehler, covering Cannes for Film Journey, sees the film as an "ideal opening night vehicle", stating "there’s a kind of absolute auteurism, a hyper-aggressive formalism, an insistence on the camera’s view as a proscenium arch inside of which an entirely theatrical universe is created, alongside a lightness, a preference for melancholy...
The 65th Cannes Film Festival kicked off with the latest work in symmetrical, dollhouse-cinema from Wes Anderson—his first to play there. In most corners of cinephilia, the debate over his merits as an auteur persist, but the word on Moonrise Kingdom has thus far been decidedly positive. Robert Koehler, covering Cannes for Film Journey, sees the film as an "ideal opening night vehicle", stating "there’s a kind of absolute auteurism, a hyper-aggressive formalism, an insistence on the camera’s view as a proscenium arch inside of which an entirely theatrical universe is created, alongside a lightness, a preference for melancholy...
- 5/24/2012
- MUBI
Strand Releasing has picked up U.S. distribution on two official selections of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Fatih Akin’s documentary “Garbage in the Garden of Eden” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Mekong Hotel.” Both features played as part of the festival’s special screenings program this week. The hour-long film “essay” from Weerasethakul, whose “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” won the Palme d’Or in 2010 and also was released by Strand, is a blend of fact and fiction built from footage the filmmaker shot at a hotel on the Mekong River for a project that was never finished. The Thailand-set film involves his actors rehearsing the story of a vampire-like mother and her daughter to be called “Ecstasy Garden.” “Eden” is the result of five years of tracking an ecological disaster affecting a Turkish village on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Akin, who vacillates...
- 5/21/2012
- by Jay A. Fernandez
- Indiewire
An experimental offering proved just too relaxing while Alan Yentob nearly got bounced from opening night for wearing trainers
Lazy days
Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul showed his experimental, hour-long film Mekong Hotel. It's set by a long quiet river and features a man chatting about Pob ghosts and Bangkok floods with a young woman and her mother on a hotel terrace overlooking the water. Occasionally, it cuts to one of them eating entrails, or hearts, like vampires or wild dogs. Throughout, a man plays a gentle blues on an acoustic guitar. It contains the literally immortal line: "I will be reborn as a horse and then several kinds of insect." It was screened after lunch in the hot Salle Bazin. On screen, the flies buzzed, the river flowed, the music played and the sun shone – I looked around and counted nine people blissfully asleep in my vicinity. Only for this Zen...
Lazy days
Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul showed his experimental, hour-long film Mekong Hotel. It's set by a long quiet river and features a man chatting about Pob ghosts and Bangkok floods with a young woman and her mother on a hotel terrace overlooking the water. Occasionally, it cuts to one of them eating entrails, or hearts, like vampires or wild dogs. Throughout, a man plays a gentle blues on an acoustic guitar. It contains the literally immortal line: "I will be reborn as a horse and then several kinds of insect." It was screened after lunch in the hot Salle Bazin. On screen, the flies buzzed, the river flowed, the music played and the sun shone – I looked around and counted nine people blissfully asleep in my vicinity. Only for this Zen...
- 5/19/2012
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
All the latest news, reviews, comment and buzz from the Croisette
10.04am: Day three of Cannes 2012 rolls round. If you want to catch up with what happened yesterday (whenever that was), here's yesterday's blow-by-blow live blog.
But as is the way with Cannes, it's history already; all that's left is to pick over the bones. And that will assuredly be happening in the video we'll post later this morning, when Peter, Xan and Catherine run the rule over Rust and Bone, last night's biggie. We'll also have a gallery of red carpet pictures, featuring star Marion Cotillard and ice-cold director Jacques Audiard. (I've said it before, I'll say it again: he's the person I want to be when I grow up.)
So what to look forward to today? The line-up is perhaps a tad less starry that on days one and two: the competition films are Reality, from Italian director...
10.04am: Day three of Cannes 2012 rolls round. If you want to catch up with what happened yesterday (whenever that was), here's yesterday's blow-by-blow live blog.
But as is the way with Cannes, it's history already; all that's left is to pick over the bones. And that will assuredly be happening in the video we'll post later this morning, when Peter, Xan and Catherine run the rule over Rust and Bone, last night's biggie. We'll also have a gallery of red carpet pictures, featuring star Marion Cotillard and ice-cold director Jacques Audiard. (I've said it before, I'll say it again: he's the person I want to be when I grow up.)
So what to look forward to today? The line-up is perhaps a tad less starry that on days one and two: the competition films are Reality, from Italian director...
- 5/18/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's interesting but indulgent featurette is no more than a diverting footnote to his more acclaimed work
Running for just more than an hour, Mekong Hotel is a kind of featurette-installation piece, accompanied almost continually by a rather bland classical guitarist; in an early scene, we see the musician being auditioned by the director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
It's an interesting though admittedly indulgent exposition of some characteristic ideas by the Palme d'Or-winning director, the kind of thing that really could only be seen at a festival — and perhaps only Cannes, at that.
The film was shot in some of the rooms, and on the terrace, of the Mekong hotel, overlooking the perennially swollen Mekong river, which divides Thailand from Laos.
A young man and woman talk and explore their growing attraction; in fact, they are lovers. But as in many of Weerasethakul's other films, this ordinary situation coexists with something extraordinary: ghosts,...
Running for just more than an hour, Mekong Hotel is a kind of featurette-installation piece, accompanied almost continually by a rather bland classical guitarist; in an early scene, we see the musician being auditioned by the director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
It's an interesting though admittedly indulgent exposition of some characteristic ideas by the Palme d'Or-winning director, the kind of thing that really could only be seen at a festival — and perhaps only Cannes, at that.
The film was shot in some of the rooms, and on the terrace, of the Mekong hotel, overlooking the perennially swollen Mekong river, which divides Thailand from Laos.
A young man and woman talk and explore their growing attraction; in fact, they are lovers. But as in many of Weerasethakul's other films, this ordinary situation coexists with something extraordinary: ghosts,...
- 5/18/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Mekong Hotel, like Uncle Boonmee Recalls His Past Lives before it, absorbs and re-interprets past projects realized (or not) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A short feature which bridges the imaginary gap between an unrealized screenplay, meagre means, digital cinema, and a roundabout collection of seemingly unrelated interests, the Thai director once again comes up with something unexpected and something hybrid. Part multi-generational ghost-vampire story (an as-yet unrealized script...here's hoping), part documentary of a hotel on the Mekong river, part (fake?) behind the scenes of a production of...something (the documentary? the genre film?), part excuse to play a wash of relaxing, improvised guitar music across the nearly hour long runtime, the film takes slivers of ideas of high fiction, documentary, actuality and the regional-historic and not so much pares those ideas down as creates with the most limited means suggestions of that which could be and now, paradoxically, is, at a slant.
- 5/18/2012
- MUBI
0:00-4:10 – Introduction; bonus fireworks; we had a perfect day; Bayer got enough sleep
4:10-6:40 – Our first experience at the iconic Grand Lumiere Theatre
6:40-16:00 – “Rust and Bone” review, including an interlude where we eat a baguette
16:00-20:50 – “Mystery” review, including unintended racism
20:50-29:20 – Snider writes; Bayer sees “Mekong Hotel,” which he hates; nobody can say the director’s name (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
29:20-36:00 – The American Pavilion and its cocktail party
36:00-44:35 – Things we love about France (first musical number in “Beauty and the Beast”; everyone says “bonjour”; different varieties of potato chips; French bakeries)
44:35-46:00 – Sincere appreciation and amazement that we’re even here, for crying out loud!
46:00-47:40 – Wrap-up and goodbyes
Email – moviebspdx@gmail.com
Facebook – www.facebook.com/MovieBSpdx
Twitter – @moviebs
Listen Here
Go to the Movie B.S. webpage
Subscribe (and vote) for Movie B.
4:10-6:40 – Our first experience at the iconic Grand Lumiere Theatre
6:40-16:00 – “Rust and Bone” review, including an interlude where we eat a baguette
16:00-20:50 – “Mystery” review, including unintended racism
20:50-29:20 – Snider writes; Bayer sees “Mekong Hotel,” which he hates; nobody can say the director’s name (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
29:20-36:00 – The American Pavilion and its cocktail party
36:00-44:35 – Things we love about France (first musical number in “Beauty and the Beast”; everyone says “bonjour”; different varieties of potato chips; French bakeries)
44:35-46:00 – Sincere appreciation and amazement that we’re even here, for crying out loud!
46:00-47:40 – Wrap-up and goodbyes
Email – moviebspdx@gmail.com
Facebook – www.facebook.com/MovieBSpdx
Twitter – @moviebs
Listen Here
Go to the Movie B.S. webpage
Subscribe (and vote) for Movie B.
- 5/18/2012
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
Thai director and installation artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul has steadily made his way from exclusively receiving a highly specialized form of cinephilic admiration for his plethora of experimental shorts and structurally ambitious features to global status as one of the most enthrallingly cryptic filmmakers working today. His recent popularity mainly stems from his 2009 Palme d'Or win for "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives." Although an established auteur years before "Uncle Boonmee," that last movie most clearly defined his far-reaching aesthetic of loopy existential storytelling filtered through Thai folklore and other mystical conceits. Weerasethakul's new hourlong experimental feature "Mekong Hotel," cobbled together from ideas for another unrealized project, reaffirms the filmmaker's appeal by simply arranging the same core elements into a distinctly odd collage. According to the director, "Mekong Hotel"...
- 5/17/2012
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Experts in auteur cinema, German sales company The Match Factory have quite the sampling this year with names such as Thai Joe (Mekong Hotel – see pic above), Fatih Akin (Polluting Paradise) and Directors’ Fortnight invited The Dream and the Silence by Jamie Rosales proudly making us say ich liebe dich the label, and let us not forget Loznitsa’s In the Fog which is being featured in the Main Comp category.
In The Fog (V Tumane) by Sergei Loznitsa
Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Polluting Paradise (MÜLL Im Garten Eden) by Fatih Akin
The Dream And The Silence (SUEÑO Y Silencio) by Jaime Rosales
And If We All Lived Together (Et Si On Vivait Tous Ensemble) by Stéphane Robelin
Barbara by Christian Petzold
Home For The Weekend (Was Bleibt) by Hans-Christian Schmid
In The Name Of The Girl (En El Nombre De La Hija) by Tania Hermida
Just The Wind...
In The Fog (V Tumane) by Sergei Loznitsa
Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Polluting Paradise (MÜLL Im Garten Eden) by Fatih Akin
The Dream And The Silence (SUEÑO Y Silencio) by Jaime Rosales
And If We All Lived Together (Et Si On Vivait Tous Ensemble) by Stéphane Robelin
Barbara by Christian Petzold
Home For The Weekend (Was Bleibt) by Hans-Christian Schmid
In The Name Of The Girl (En El Nombre De La Hija) by Tania Hermida
Just The Wind...
- 5/17/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Quite interesting images from Mekong Hotel, an upcoming Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s movie which will screen on the Croisette next week. Weerasethakul is no stranger to Cannes – actually he won Palme d’Or for his 2000 film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, so I guess that we’re all a little bit surprised to hear [...]
Continue reading Cannes 2012: Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul on FilmoFilia.
Related posts: Cannes 2012 Line-Up Cannes 2012: In Another Country by Hong Sang-Soo Starring Isabelle Huppert Hotel Transylvania New Images...
Continue reading Cannes 2012: Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul on FilmoFilia.
Related posts: Cannes 2012 Line-Up Cannes 2012: In Another Country by Hong Sang-Soo Starring Isabelle Huppert Hotel Transylvania New Images...
- 5/16/2012
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
Look out, most prestigious and glamour-drenched international movie showcase/market in the world! The Americans have taken over the 65th Festival de Cannes. They have rolled out the big guns and the big talent — and no, I don’t mean that the festival has been anchored to the premiere of some e-ticket popcorn showpiece like Robin Hood or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as happened in recent years. (This year, the token Hollywood vulgarity is Madagascar 3, which has so nothing to do with this festival that no one has to pretend.) The films with the featured slots,...
- 5/16/2012
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW - Inside Movies
Mekong Hotel – Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Buzz: Allegedly involving Tilda Swinton at some point and focusing on flooding and pig farming in the area surrounding the Mekong River, the festival surprised arthouse fans when they announced that this enigmatic project, with nary a detail surfacing in the weeks since. Coming off of a huge victory at Cannes in 2010, it’s a notably modest return to the Croisette for Thai Joe, but with him, cinephiles will take what they can get. Almost as buzzed-up is the news that another film by Weerasethakul – the 20-minute Ashes – will unspool in the Market a day before streaming for free on Mubi. Added all up and we’ve got ourselves almost 90 minutes of new material to play with.
The Gist: Mekong Hotel is a portrait of a hotel near the Mekong River in the north-east of Thailand. The river there marks the border between Thailand and Laos.
Buzz: Allegedly involving Tilda Swinton at some point and focusing on flooding and pig farming in the area surrounding the Mekong River, the festival surprised arthouse fans when they announced that this enigmatic project, with nary a detail surfacing in the weeks since. Coming off of a huge victory at Cannes in 2010, it’s a notably modest return to the Croisette for Thai Joe, but with him, cinephiles will take what they can get. Almost as buzzed-up is the news that another film by Weerasethakul – the 20-minute Ashes – will unspool in the Market a day before streaming for free on Mubi. Added all up and we’ve got ourselves almost 90 minutes of new material to play with.
The Gist: Mekong Hotel is a portrait of a hotel near the Mekong River in the north-east of Thailand. The river there marks the border between Thailand and Laos.
- 5/15/2012
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
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