Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Cannes 2023: Asteroid City
The negative talking points around Wes Anderson—too twee, airlessly production-designed, an aesthetic in search of emotions—have metastasized thanks to a wave of AI-generated trailers of movies “in his style” (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Star Wars—no, I’m not linking!) that seemingly prove computer fake can be just as bad as the real thing. I wish I could credit the tweet I saw (and should’ve fav’d) which pointed out that maybe part of the reason Anderson’s aesthetic is the only one being repeatedly run through the AI mill is because even a barely-film-literate coder can figure out its basic components, as codified in […]
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Cannes 2023: The Zone of Interest, Killers of the Flower Moon, May December
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, instantly hailed as a masterpiece upon the conclusion of its first screenings in Cannes last Friday, finds the British filmmaker once again engineering a vehicle with which to burrow beneath viewers’ skin. After opening his previous film, an adaptation of Michel Faber’s 2000 sci-fi novel Under the Skin, with an on-screen reminder of cinema’s intrinsic visuality—darkness, then pulsating orbs and, finally/explicitly, a dilating pupil—here Glazer turns to the aural. Another literary adaptation (this time of a work by Martin Amis, who died of oesophageal cancer the same day Glazer walked the red carpet), The […]
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Cannes 2023: About Dry Grasses, The Sweet East
Cannes official competition has grandfathered-in filmmakers—Pedro Almodóvar, the Dardennes, Arnaud Desplechin—who will keep being included no matter what, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose every feature since 2002’s Distant has premiered here, is definitely among them. After receiving the Grand Prix for 2011’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan introduced his “three-plus-hours only” mode with 2014’s Winter Sleep and 2018’s The Wild Pear Tree, and reception was what you might call “respectfully muted.” Outside the festival, his reputation seems to have fallen off: it’s a long way from the 2007 Coen brothers short World Cinema, in which a cowboy played by Josh Brolin goes to see […]
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Cannes 2023: The Goldman Case, The Delinquents
On trial in 1975 for three robberies, plus a fourth in which he’s accused of also killing two people, Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) makes his opening statement, explaining that he’s declining to call any character witnesses because he wants to be judged on the facts rather than emotional appeals. “I will stand before you in my sole innocence,” he declares, “without the pomp or theatricality” that normally accrue themselves to trials, “which disgust me.” This is very funny given that what follows is a true-story courtroom drama of nonstop rhetorical flourishes and screaming matches between opposing counsels, witnesses, the jury […]
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Cannes 2023: Jeanne du Barry, Monster, Youth (Spring)
Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry, the opening film of this year’s Official Selection, is at least the eighth feature-length biopic to center around Louis XV’s final maîtresse-en-titre, and the first significant film to feature her as a prominent character since Sofia Coppola’s famously booed 2006 Palme d’Or contender, Marie Antoinette (portrayed therein by Asia Argento). As with most Cannes openers, Maïwenn’s film is most notable for its cast: Johnny Depp, stunt-cast as Louis XV; Melvil Poupaud as the Count du Barry; and Maïwenn herself as the titular titillator. The film screened amidst ongoing national protests over pension reform, which almost certainly […]
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WYPR Announces Baltimore’s New/Next Film Festival
Eric Allen Hatch, who contributed the “Why I am Hopeful” piece to our site in 2018 among other pieces, is announcing today the New/Next Film Festival, to take place in Baltimore from August 18-20. New/Next was organized in response to the news that the Maryland Film Festival, founded in 1999 and where Hatch previously worked as Director of Programming between 2010 and 2018, would not be having a 2023 edition. To take place at the Charles Theater, New/Next will spotlight emerging works from international filmmakers with a concerted emphasis on presenting new and repertory titles from the Baltimore film community. […]
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Cannes 2023: Occupied City
Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux is not good at playing defense. When asked at Monday’s pre-opening day press conference about an open letter published by (retired) actress Adèle Haenel accusing the festival of protecting “its rapist chiefs,” among them Roman Polanski and Gérard Depardieu, Frémaux responded that “if you thought that it’s a festival for rapists, you wouldn’t be here listening to me, you would not be complaining that you can’t get tickets to get into screenings.” “Festival for rapists” is a clunkily phrased self-own for Frémaux and his subsequent leap to ticketing problems is equally ungainly—but the access problems […]
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13 Films to Anticipate at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival
With the Cannes Film Festival underway and Vadim Rizov and Blake Williams readying their first dispatches, here, from our team, are 13 films that we think should be on your radar here on the Croisette. Asteroid City. Following Moonrise Kingdom and The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson’s newest film is his third to premiere at Cannes. Asteroid City boasts a typically sprawling ensemble cast of both returning regulars (Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe) and high-profile new additions (including Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson). While the thematic elements are familiar—dead and disappointing parents, extremely ambitious playwrights and a dedicated elementary school […]
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Hot Docs 2023: Russian Films Depict the Brink of War at the Festival’s 30th Anniversary Edition
This year’s 30th anniversary edition of Hot Docs, North America’s largest doc fest, (which ran from April 27 to May 7) was, perhaps unsurprisingly, jam-packed with so many world-premiering films and one-of-a-kind industry events as to be a bit overwhelming. (Fortunately, Hot Docs also boasts one of the smoothest festival apps around to help alleviate all that scheduling stress.) That said, I did manage to make the most of my four days in Toronto, even popping in on the prestigious Hot Docs Forum (which was both impressive and tough to cover with three projects subject to a total media blackout, […]
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Hot Docs Podcast Festival Showcase 2023: Non-Fiction Without Borders: A Co-Production Case Study with The LA Times and CBC Podcasts
Featuring LA Times head of audio Jazmín Aguilera and CBC Podcasts director Arif Noorani (and moderated by Lindsay Michael, Senior Podcast Manager for Amazon Music in Canada), “Non-Fiction Without Borders: A Co-Production Case Study with The LA Times and CBC Podcasts” covered an impressive amount of ground for an hour-long panel. Part of the Hot Docs Podcast Festival Showcase (a mini audio-storytelling fest nestled within this year’s 30th anniversary edition, April 27-May 7), the discussion began, ironically enough, with a high-adrenaline video teaser for Outlaw Oceans, the case study at hand. It starred both Somali pirates and Ian Urbina, the […]
