Elia Suleiman in It Must Be Heaven
This is the second year for NYC’s CineCina Film Festival, which is flying relatively under-the-radar relative to its titles. Per its press releases, CineCina is “the only New York-based film festival dedicated to promoting excellent Chinese films,” and it’s true that the lineup features a smattering of new Chinese films. But it also has one Cannes premiere, Elia Suleiman’s It Must Be Heaven, that wasn’t at NYFF; the overdue first NY screening of Yuri Bykov’s Russian class-conscious Die Hard riff The Factory; a reprise screening of NYFF selection The Wild Goose Lake (at $20 a pop, $10 cheaper than tickets for main slate NYFF selections); and screenings of new digital restorations of the landmark Turkish film Yol and John Woo’s The Killer. Via the festival press release,… Read more
By Vadim Rizov
Greener Grass
The cinematic equivalent of the popular improv exercise “Yes, and…,” Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s feature directorial debut, Greener Grass, opens on an extreme instance of absurdity and gobsmackingly builds from there. In picturesque suburbia, competition runs thick amongst cutthroat nuclear families, neighborhood pool parties are all the rage and mom and dad travel to and from soccer practice via the tacky family golf cart. Co-starring the film’s directors as housewives who develop a grating rivalry, the film opens with Jill (DeBoer) giving up custody of her baby daughter to Lisa (Luebbe). Why does Jill do this? Because Lisa expresses interest in the child, and who is Jill to get in the way? After all, Jill has another kid, a son… Read more
By Erik Luers
Strand Releasing, the inventive, carefully curated independent distributor known for its release of both American and international arthouse auteurs, turns 30 this year, and to celebrate it has invited its filmmaker friends to create short iPhone films that speak in various ways to Strand’s mission and film culture today. I’m happy to premiere here exclusively at Filmmaker shorts by Ira Sachs, whose Frankie opens this Friday, October 25th; Indignation director, screenwriter and producer James Schamus; and Shulie and A Woman, A Part director Elisabeth Subrin. Previously released have been shorts by Fatih Akin and Karim Ainouz. Comments Strand co-founder Marcus Hu, “The genesis for the idea arose one day over lunch with [MoMA Chief Curator, Film] Raj Roy. Raj came… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
Making its world premiere at the recently concluded Camden International Film Festival was New York-based, Argentinian/South African director Yaara Sumeruk’s short doc, If We Say That We Are Friends, which, in a taut 17 minutes, sits the viewer down into the midst of a warmly unusual conversation on race taking place across dinner tables in the Cape Town South African township Khayelitsha. The organizers of Dine with Khayelitsha arrange for relatively well-off South Afrikaners from the city to hear first-hand about life in the townships by joining residents for dinners of African food in their homes. (Formed in 2015, the program has since expanded to townships beyond Khayelitsha.) In this smart and assured short film, Sumeruk, whose work traverses doc,… Read more
By Scott Macaulay
Tell Me Who I Am (photo: Netflix)
Tell Me Who I Am, the Telluride-premiering feature from Academy Award-nominated (for Best Documentary Short Subject) director Ed Perkins, digs into the stranger-than-fiction saga of Alex Lewis, one half of an identical set of twins, who at the age of 18 lost his memory in a motorcycle accident. Upon awakening from a coma the only person Alex was able to recognize was his brother Marcus — the mirror image he would come to rely on to relearn pretty much everything, from the mundane (down to brushing his teeth) to his very sense of self. In turn, Marcus devotes himself wholeheartedly to the project of healing his sibling both physically and mentally. So much so that he makes the fateful decision… Read more
By Lauren Wissot
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse
Eulogized debuts draw ravenous, patient cynics, who stalk the scent of a fledgling’s success to their second movie, hoping their foe might slip. Robert Eggers, a name of contention after headlines announced he would remake Nosferatu (TBD) before his Sundance debut The Witch was released theatrically for audiences to decide if he were worthy themselves, has made his second move. The Lighthouse, a sophomore effort especially susceptible to readied blows, has made it back with critics on the festival circuit and will now see appraisal from the mainstream on its theatrical bout. But the film expels farts and sailor vulgarity, an impenetrable raunch and silliness that upsets its cinephilic self consciousness and the cynics’ fight to declare it one big affectation. … Read more
By Aaron Hunt
Will Smith in Gemini Man
There are only 14 US theaters capable of showing Gemini Man at 120 frames per second—only in 2K, not the intended 4K (Ang Lee is making movies for the future). Going to one of those 14, NYC’s AMC Lincoln Square, is disorienting even before the movie begins. The Dolby theater has its bass jacked to the point that a bumper encouraging the purchase of soda and popcorn generates rumbles so intense the seat pulsates beneath, as if an ice cube dropping into an ice-cold Coke should equal an earthquake right below—it’s all very silly and hyperbolic, and Gemini Man (to its infinite credit) does not resort to similar overkill to literally shake viewers up. Another pre-show bumper is designed to show that laser… Read more
By Vadim Rizov
Music for Bleeding Hearts
Two teen girls lust for each other in post-Dust Bowl Oklahoma. A pregnant writer visits her parents in China and confronts her father’s closeted homosexuality. A Filipina punk-rocker is sent from Manila to the countryside and falls in love while attending an all-girls Catholic school. A meek farmhand and a police officer become lovers despite the oppressive anti-gay legislation in rural Siberia. A trans TSA agent grapples with the prospect of de-transitioning in the face of ostracization. These varied narratives account for a mere fraction of the films that will screen at the 31st annual NewFest, also known as New York’s LGBT Film Festival, which will run from October 23-29, with screenings held at Cinépolis Chelsea, the SVA Theater, and… Read more
By Natalia Keogan
This Action Lies
Heimat is a Space in Time
Being John Malkovitch
CineCina Film Festival Announces Second Edition Line-Up
Oct 23, 2019
Filming in the Golf Cart Capital of the World: Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe on Greener Grass
Oct 23, 2019
Strand Releasing’s “30/30 Vision”: Premiering New iPhone Shorts by Ira Sachs, James Schamus and Elisabeth Subrin
Oct 22, 2019
Back to One, Episode 80: Jason Clarke
Oct 22, 2019
Producer Reset: Independent Producers Unplug at the Nevada City Film Festival Filmmaker Residency
Oct 21, 2019
“If You Have Racist Beliefs, They Want You to Say So at Dinner”: Yaara Sumeruk on Her Doc Short, If We Say That We Are Friends
Oct 20, 2019
“It Was a Story that Played Out Almost as a Psychological Thriller and Yet it was True”: Ed Perkins on Tell Me Who I Am
Oct 20, 2019
“A Black and White Movie in a Stupid Aspect Ratio”: Robert Eggers on The Lighthouse
Oct 18, 2019
Gemini Man: Tax Credits at 120fps
Oct 16, 2019
Trailer Premiere: Graham Swon’s The World is Full of Secrets
Trailer Watch: Uncut Gems, the New Safdie Brothers Film Starring Adam Sandler
Watch: Not Getting Stoned with Caveh: Rick Alverson
