Category Archives: International

New Poster And Clip For “Universal Language” Released

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universal-languageWith over 15 festival wins, “Universal Language” continues to capture the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide. Universal Language is also Canada’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards. The film is eligible for all 2024 honors, having completed a one-week qualifying run earlier this year.

Directed by Matthew Rankin and co-written with Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi, Universal Language marks Rankin’s second feature after the critically acclaimed The Twentieth Century (2019).

In a mysterious and surreal interzone somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, the lives of multiple characters interweave with each other in surprising and mysterious ways. Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it. Meanwhile, Massoud leads a group of increasingly-befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg. Matthew quits his meaningless job in a Québecois government office and sets out upon an enigmatic journey to visit his mother. Space, time and personal identities crossfade, interweave and echo into a surreal comedy of misdirection.

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“The Girl With The Needle” From Director Magnus von Horn Sets Release

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girl-with-the-needleMUBI is set to release THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE, an unflinching portrait of a desperate young woman in the aftermath of WWI struggling to find love and a sense of morality. THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE made its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and was an official selection at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film most recently won European Film Awards for best production design for Jagna Dobesz and best original score for Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary), with cinematography by Michael Dymek (A Real Pain, EO). The film was written by Magnus von Horn and Line Langebeck, who also produced.

Inspired by a true story and directed by Magnus von Horn, Variety’s 2025 ‘Director to Watch’ (The Here After, Sweat) THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE follows Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne – Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland and Isabella Eklöf’s Holiday), a young factory worker, as she is struggling to survive in post WW1 Copenhagen. When she finds herself unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she meets Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a charismatic woman running an underground adoption agency, helping mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted children. With nowhere else to turn, Karoline takes on the role of a wet-nurse. A strong connection is formed between the two women, but Karoline’s world shatters when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her work.

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Japan Society Announces First North American Retrospective on Kaizo Hayashi

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Kaizo-Hayashi

To Sleep So as to Dream © Video Detective Agency

Japan Society Announces First North American Retrospective on Kaizo Hayashi, Independent Luminary of 80s and 90s Cinema

Japan Society has announced the first North American retrospective on director Kaizo Hayashi, one of the great luminaries of independent Japanese cinema in the 1980s and 1990s.

The world of Kaizo Hayashi is one of cinematic reverie and enchantment, whose reverence for film history—transposing genre and stylistic conventions from benshi and silent era serials to jidaigeki and hardboiled noir—results in one of the most imaginative and inspiring filmographies of the post-studio era. Invoking the mystery and intrigue of the moving image, amidst the flutter of celluloid frames, his cinema of the past brims with ingenuity and far-flung imagination, conjuring fantasies of what dreams may come.
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Queens-Based Festival of Cinema NYC 2024 Announces Film Lineup for Next Month’s Fest

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festival-of-cinema-nycFestival of Cinema NYC returns to the Regal UA Midway in Forest Hills for the 8th edition of the popular Queens-based film festival, running from August 2-11. Additional venues this year include the Queens Public Library at Forest Hills, and Yant Tattoo Studios – the Official Filmmaker Lounge. This year the festival expands its programming with special presentations at the Queens Center Mall in Rego Park. The festival opens with Ivy Vale’s coming of age musical Out of My Comfort Zone and closes with the world premiere of Delfine Paolini’s A Wonderful Way with Dragons.

Additional world premieres among the feature film lineup include Laura Angiulli’s I Know You, Harrison Dillingham’s Mortimer, and Charles Caracciolo’s The Old Ballgame: The QBH Story. North American premieres include Andrey Getov’s Bo Nan Za, Francois Manceaux’s Encontro, Penny Zhou’s Hollywood Takeover: China’s Control in the Film Industry, Roman Balmakov’s No Farmers No Food: Will You Eat the Bugs?, Holger Borggrefe’s Once And For Real, and Jordi Torrent’s Third Week. The short films lineup adds an additional 12 world premieres and 2 North American premieres, as well.
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Film Forum Set To Premiere Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border”

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green-borderWinner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, “Green Border” immediately drew controversy from the Polish government for its depiction of the European migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border.

Shot in stark black-and-white, this riveting thriller explores the intractable conflict from multiple perspectives: a Syrian family fleeing ISIS caught between cruel border guards in both countries; young guards instructed to brutally reject the migrants; and activists who, at great risk, aid the refugees.

Holland (three-time Academy Award® nominee for Angry Harvest, Europa Europa, and In Darkness) brings an unflinching eye and deep compassion to this blistering critique of a humanitarian calamity that continues to unfold.

The Museum of the Moving Image will present a series of films by Agnieszka Holland from June 7–21, 2024.

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Eerie Trailer for Horror Film “Dancing Village: The Curse Begins” Released

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Dancing-Village--The-Curse-Begins.jpgLionsgate has revealed an official US trailer for horror thriller from Indonesia titled Dancing Village: The Curse Begins,

It is Directed by Indonesian filmmaker Kimo Stamboel (Macabre, Headshot, The Queen of Black Magic). The screenplay for Dancing Village is by Lele Laila and is produced by Manoj Punjabi.

“The village still holds many mysteries”, says the film’s synopsis. “Piece by piece of mystery is revealed, including the terror of the most feared entity, namely, Badarawuhi.”

The movie stars Maudy Effrosina, Aulia Sarah, Jourdy Pranata, Ardit Erwandha, Moh Iqbal Sulaiman, Claresta Taufan Kusumarina, Aming Sugandhi, Dinda Kanyadewi, Pipien Putri, Zainal Abidin Zetta

Lionsgate is set to release “Dancing Village: The Curse Begins” in select US theaters on April 26, 2024.

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Japan Society Announces May Screening Events: Sans Soleil, Lumberjack the Monster, and Tampopo

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tampopo-janus-filmsJapan Society, a 116-year-old nonprofit organization bridging the U.S. and Japan, today announced it will host three special screenings in May spanning classic Japanese cinema, a lauded documentary, and a major North American premiere. Japan Society is a storied institution that has presented Japanese art and culture for over a century, and its robust Film Program presents over 60 screenings from the silent era through to contemporary cinema all across the year.

Japan Society’s May events begin on May 1 with French filmmaker Chris Marker’s influential 1983 documentary Sans Soleil presented on rare imported 35mm. Driven by the desire to “capture life in the process of becoming history,” Marker traveled the globe and made a sprawling body of work that ruminates on the nature of memory and time. Of the several films he made in Japan, Sans Soleil remains the late director’s greatest achievement.

An unnamed woman narrates the poetic letters and philosophical reflections of an invisible world traveler accompanied by footage of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Iceland, Paris, San Francisco, and, most significantly, Tokyo—a city whose people, streets, malls, and temples inspire the traveler’s richest observations.
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“Gundam Seed Freedom” Anime Film To Have East Coast Premiere

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gundam-seed-freedomJapan Society, a 116-year-old nonprofit organization with a goal of bringing the U.S. and Japan together, today announced it will host the East Coast Premiere of the record-breaking Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM. The Gundam saga, often called the “Star Wars of Japan”, is a beloved 40+ year franchise. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM is its latest entry and a sequel to 2002’s Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, one of the most popular series in the Gundam multiverse. This special event is presented together with Bandai Namco Filmworks and Anime NYC, and it will take place simultaneously with a West Coast Premiere hosted by Bandai Namco Filmworks in LA.
 
The subtitled premiere of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM will take place on Sunday, March 31 at 4 PM and the English dubbed premiere will take place on Monday, April 1 at 7 PM. Both screenings will be held at Japan Society.
 
Japan Society is a storied institution that has presented Japanese art, culture, business and policy for over a century, including visits from U.S. Presidents, Japanese Prime Ministers, and Nobel Prize winners. It presents this new Gundam film in recognition of Gundam’s cultural significance in Japan and global place as a pillar in the U.S.-Japan relationship and our shared popular arts.
 
Mobile Suit Gundam began in 1979 in Japan with a 43-episode animated television series. Acclaimed for its revolutionary storytelling, it told a gritty, realistic story about the traumas of war in a future conflict dominated by massive human-shaped war machines called “Gundam”. This series would go on to captivate generations of audiences around the planet across over 50 sequel television series, films, comics, and video games.
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Tarkovsky’s Haunting Late Masterpiece NOSTALGHIA New 4K Restoration Opens Feb. 21 at Film Forum

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ANDREI-TARKOVSKY---NOSTALGHIAAndrei Tarkovsky’s haunting late masterpiece NOSTALGHIA (1983) will run at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration from Wednesday, February 21 through Tuesday, February 29.

In Tarkovsky’s first film made outside the USSR, Russian expatriate Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, THE MIRROR), wanders wintry Italian landscapes while returning in memory to his homeland. He becomes obsessed with the Botticelli-like beauty of his translator Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), as well as with the apocalyptic ramblings of a self-destructive wanderer named Domenico (Erland Josephson, THE SACRIFICE). In one of cinema’s most agonizingly suspenseful sequences, the fate of the world is found hanging on a candle’s flight across a dry pool, culminating in an overwhelming final shot.

Written with Tonino Guerra, frequent collaborator of Michelangelo Antonioni (on every film from L’AVVENTURA through BLOW-UP), Federico Fellini (AMARCORD), and Francesco Rosi (ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES, CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI), NOSTALGHIA is a mystical and mysterious collision of East and West, shot with the tactile beauty that only Tarkovsky could provide.

NOSTALGHIA won the Grand Prix du cinéma de creation prize for Best Director (shared with Robert Bresson for L’ARGENT) and the international film critics prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. Soviet authorities prevented the film from winning the Palme d’Or, which hardened Tarkovsky’s resolve to never work in the Soviet Union again.

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Cinema Tropical Awards: Argentina’s TRENQUE LAUQUEN Named Best Latin American Film of the Year

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cinema-tropical-awardsThe Argentine feature Trenque Lauquen by Laura Citarella was announced as the winner of the top award for Best Latin American Film of the Year at the 14th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards, which were announced this evening in a special event at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The Chilean filmmaker Manuela Martelli was the winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Director for her debut feature Chile ‘76, while the Costa Rican feature, I Have Electric Dreams (Tengo sueños eléctricos) by Valentina Maurel was announced winner of the award for Best First Film. The jury gave the award for Best Documentary to The Trial (El juicio) by Ulises de la Órden.

In the U.S. Latinx Cinema competition, the winner of the award for Best Film was the fiction film Story Ave, the debut feature by Aristotle Torres.

The Latin American winners of this year’s Cinema Tropical Awards were selected by a jury panel composed of Mónica Castillo, Senior Film Programer Curator at the Jacob Burns Film Center; Mara Fortes, Senior Curator at the Telluride Film Festival; María Paula Lorgia, Artistic Director of the San Diego Latino Film Festival; Marian Luntz, Film Curator at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Manuel Santini, Senior Manager, Programming at Film at Lincoln Center.
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