Last Summer.Catherine Breillat holds eye contact with such intensity that it’s difficult not to feel a little intimidated in her presence. It’s an apt trait for a filmmaker of equally, and brilliantly, intimidating films. Unafraid, even eager, to cause discomfort, Breillat has dedicated her career to the cinematic excavation of taboo subjects and liberating female desire onscreen.With her first film in ten years, Last Summer, Breillat presents a reworking of May el-Toukhy’s 2019 film Queen of Hearts in which a lawyer, predominantly working on sexual assault cases, has an affair with her 17-year-old stepson. The project is challenging in the ways you might expect from the filmmaker, but somehow tamer, too; the sex is not explicit in the manner of Romance (1999) or Anatomy of Hell (2004), nor are the shocks quite as violent as they are in her widely celebrated Fat Girl (2001). Her approach here feels more...
- 7/12/2023
- MUBI
Like some of her most memorable films, including 36 Fillette, Romance, Sex is Comedy and Anatomy of Hell, French writer-director Catherine Breillat’s new feature, Last Summer (L’Été dernier), dangerously straddles borders between unnerving drama, dark comedy and erotic exploitation — which is precisely the place the director wants to be.
On the surface, the plot seems to come right out of a softcore stepmom flick, following a successful lawyer, Anne (Léa Drucker), having an illicit affair with her stepson, Théo (Samuel Kircher), a rebellious 17-year-old who looks like a camera stand-in for Timothée Chalamet. But while the film might follow that template at first blush, including a handful of rather direct sex scenes, Breillat is after something other than mere Skinemax fodder, probing the depths of desire among a bourgeoisie constrained to live out dull, cold existences, and the manipulation that can happen between two lovers with a significant age gap.
On the surface, the plot seems to come right out of a softcore stepmom flick, following a successful lawyer, Anne (Léa Drucker), having an illicit affair with her stepson, Théo (Samuel Kircher), a rebellious 17-year-old who looks like a camera stand-in for Timothée Chalamet. But while the film might follow that template at first blush, including a handful of rather direct sex scenes, Breillat is after something other than mere Skinemax fodder, probing the depths of desire among a bourgeoisie constrained to live out dull, cold existences, and the manipulation that can happen between two lovers with a significant age gap.
- 5/27/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Almost a full decade away from the camera since, Catherine Breillat returns to the competition with L’Été dernier (Last Summer). This is her second time here after 2007’s Une vieille maîtresse. Best known for Romance (1999), Fat Girl (2001), and Anatomy of Hell (2004), her 2013 Abuse of Weakness was a TIFF premiere.
A remake of May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts – this sees Anne (Léa Drucker) a respected lawyer who lives in Paris with her husband Pierre and their two young daughters. Théo, Pierre’s 17-year-old son (Samuel Kircher) from a previous marriage, moves in, and Anne eventually begins an affair with him.…...
A remake of May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts – this sees Anne (Léa Drucker) a respected lawyer who lives in Paris with her husband Pierre and their two young daughters. Théo, Pierre’s 17-year-old son (Samuel Kircher) from a previous marriage, moves in, and Anne eventually begins an affair with him.…...
- 5/26/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Some of the films have never been seen by Scandinavian audiences.
Nordic distributor NonStop Entertainment’s classics label NonStop Timeless has acquired Scandinavian rights to a huge batch of 111 classic films from a variety of international sellers.
The films span Fernando Meirelles’s City of God (pictured) through to James Ivory’s Maurice. Some of the notable filmmakers included in the deals are David Lynch, Catherine Breillat and Nina Menkes.
The acquisitions also include George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park from Yellow Veil; Taika Waititi’s Boy and Eagle vs. Shark from HanWay; Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable...
Nordic distributor NonStop Entertainment’s classics label NonStop Timeless has acquired Scandinavian rights to a huge batch of 111 classic films from a variety of international sellers.
The films span Fernando Meirelles’s City of God (pictured) through to James Ivory’s Maurice. Some of the notable filmmakers included in the deals are David Lynch, Catherine Breillat and Nina Menkes.
The acquisitions also include George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park from Yellow Veil; Taika Waititi’s Boy and Eagle vs. Shark from HanWay; Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable...
- 6/24/2022
- by Wendy Mitchell
- ScreenDaily
Global porn icon Rocco Siffredi is set to star in “Red Academy,” an English-language horror film to be shot entirely in his academy for aspiring porn stars; however, it will not be an X-rated pic.
Rome-based True Colours has taken world sales on the film to be directed by Italy’s Alessio Liguori, whose previous chiller, the English-language “In the Trap,” was sold widely by the company earlier this year in Cannes. “Trap” signalled the resurgence of Italy’s capability to churn out genre films that can travel amid the growing global appetite for horror titles.
In “Red Academy,” two best friends named Ricky and Eve become bored with their European vacation and to spice it up visit the Rocco Siffredi Academy in Budapest. This turns out to be “a shocking journey” into a scary “underground world where mystical rituals mix with faith,” and “domination melts into adoration and violence,...
Rome-based True Colours has taken world sales on the film to be directed by Italy’s Alessio Liguori, whose previous chiller, the English-language “In the Trap,” was sold widely by the company earlier this year in Cannes. “Trap” signalled the resurgence of Italy’s capability to churn out genre films that can travel amid the growing global appetite for horror titles.
In “Red Academy,” two best friends named Ricky and Eve become bored with their European vacation and to spice it up visit the Rocco Siffredi Academy in Budapest. This turns out to be “a shocking journey” into a scary “underground world where mystical rituals mix with faith,” and “domination melts into adoration and violence,...
- 11/9/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Never a stranger to controversy, “Fat Girl” director Catherine Breillat made some provocative remarks during a recent Variety interview in the lead-up to her new role as Locarno Film Festival jury chief. The interview runs the gamut of topics, with Breillat touching on everything from Tunisian-French director Abdellatif Kechiche to disgraced #MeToo crusader Asia Argento, with whom Breillat worked on 2007’s “The Last Mistress.”
Breillat said she feels that Kechiche, whose 2019 Cannes film “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo” appalled audiences with its graphic and some say misogynistic depictions of sex and nudity, overdid it with the sex scenes in 2013’s Nc-17-rated lesbian romance “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”
“Well, I do think Kechiche spent way too long shooting that sex scene. He shot it over two weeks, whereas I would have done it in a day,” Breillait said. “You can’t put actresses in that position for 15 days. I’ve...
Breillat said she feels that Kechiche, whose 2019 Cannes film “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo” appalled audiences with its graphic and some say misogynistic depictions of sex and nudity, overdid it with the sex scenes in 2013’s Nc-17-rated lesbian romance “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”
“Well, I do think Kechiche spent way too long shooting that sex scene. He shot it over two weeks, whereas I would have done it in a day,” Breillait said. “You can’t put actresses in that position for 15 days. I’ve...
- 8/9/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
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
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999) is playing January 25 - February 24 and Anatomy of Hell (2004) is playing January 26 - February 25, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the series Catherine Breillat, Auteur of Porn?“Why do men who disgust us understand us better than the ones we love?”—Marie, Romance“Forget it. She’s a bitch. A slut like any other.”“Yes, but the queen of sluts.”—Man, Anatomy of HellNobody fucks like the French. Or is that the Italians? Ask Catherine Breillat, the French auteur who remarked, when probed in an interview promoting her 2004 feature Anatomy of Hell, regarding the decision to cast Rocco Siffredi, the Italian megastar of hardcore porn, in one of the film’s two leading roles: “No French actor could do it. Rocco performs with his entire body and mind, so he is a sort of perfection.” The Italian Stallion,...
- 1/27/2017
- MUBI
Exclusive: Company also reveals more details about Claire Denis’s High Life and will show fresh footage of Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
Wild Bunch will kick-off sales on an authorised, no-holds-barred documentary about legendary Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi at the upcoming Efm.
Simply entitled Rocco, the documentary features a candid interview with the star in which he speaks about his true life, touching on his early career, fame and life with his wife of 20 years, Rosa Caracciolo, who he co-starred with in Tarzan X: Shame Of Jane- before they married and went on to have two children together.
Sometimes referred to as the “Italian stallion”, Siffredi has appeared in more than 1,500 films over his 30-year career and also dabbled briefly in the French arthouse cinema world, appearing in Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy Of Hell.
The film also follows Siffredi’s recent decision to quit the porn business for good, shortly after appearing...
Wild Bunch will kick-off sales on an authorised, no-holds-barred documentary about legendary Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi at the upcoming Efm.
Simply entitled Rocco, the documentary features a candid interview with the star in which he speaks about his true life, touching on his early career, fame and life with his wife of 20 years, Rosa Caracciolo, who he co-starred with in Tarzan X: Shame Of Jane- before they married and went on to have two children together.
Sometimes referred to as the “Italian stallion”, Siffredi has appeared in more than 1,500 films over his 30-year career and also dabbled briefly in the French arthouse cinema world, appearing in Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy Of Hell.
The film also follows Siffredi’s recent decision to quit the porn business for good, shortly after appearing...
- 2/8/2016
- ScreenDaily
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A moral group's bid to ban French film Anatomy of Hell from this month's Auckland and Wellington film festivals failed Monday. The Film and Literature Review Board turned down the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards' application to stop the screenings but said it would review the film's censorship rating, which restricts it to patrons 18 years and older. The Society also is appealing the R18 rating for another festival title, Twenty-nine Palms.
- 7/13/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- The 36th Auckland International Film Festival opens Friday under threat of legal action that could stop the screening of two of its more than 130 features, Anatomy of Hell and Twentynine Palms. Although the New Zealand film censor has already approved both French movies as suitable for filmgoers 18 years old and older, the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards is appealing the decisions. In its submission to the Film and Literature Board of Review, the Society said Anatomy of Hell contained violence and dehumanizing sexual content that is "injurious to the public good" because it demeans women and promotes misogyny.
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