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“It’s not for us.” Anyone who has ever pitched a movie has heard those words. But when Luis Ortega was looking for financing for his latest feature, the surrealist, gender-bending Kill the Jockey, he heard it a lot.

It didn’t matter that Ortega’s work had been making waves in Argentine cinema since his first feature, 2003’s Caja Negra, or that his prior feature, El Angel, competed in Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2019. Kill the Jockey, about a jockey whose identity — already fragmented by trauma, drugs and alcohol — repeatedly transforms following a racing accident and its accompanying head injury, was just too esoteric.

“This movie is not pitchable,” Ortega admits.

Another potential reason for all those passes? “Pineapple Head. That’s [what] the film was called,” Ortega says, alluding to a homeless man in Buenos Aires who — walking around the city in a fur coat, one sandal and one woman’s high-heeled shoe,...

“The Wild Robot” director Chris Sanders was feeling a little lost himself.

In 2020, he ventured into live-action filmmaking with “The Call of the Wild,” an ambitious, imperfect adaptation of Jack London’s 1903 novel. Sanders got to work with Janusz Kaminski, Steven Spielberg’s regular cinematographer, and it allowed him to direct Harrison Ford as a grizzled frontiersman. But the film opened a few weeks before the pandemic shut down movie theaters.

For the first time in his career, Sanders had delivered a disappointment.

Then DreamWorks Animation, the studio where the filmmaker had made “How to Train Your Dragon” and “The Croods,” wooed him back. He looked at the projects the studio had in development or owned the rights to and quickly zeroed in on “The Wild Robot,” a book by American author and illustrator Peter Brown about a high-tech machine that washes up on an island inhabited by animals.

Sanders...

Luis Ortega’s “Kill the Jockey” gallops onscreen with a surreal drama of mob hit men, romance, and spiraling self-destruction.

The feature, which premiered at Venice and will screen at TIFF, is directed by Ortega from a script he co-wrote with Rodolfo Palacios and Fabián Casas. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart leads the film as a wayward jockey caught up in a mob-run racing syndicate while suffering from substance abuse. Oh, and he’s trying to outrun someone they’ve sent to kill him.

The official synopsis reads: “Remo Manfredini (Biscayart) is a legendary jockey, but his self-destructive behaviour is beginning to outshine his talent and threaten his relationship with his girlfriend Abril (Úrsula Corberó). On the day of the most important race of his career that will clear him of his debts from his mobster boss Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho), he has a severe accident, disappears from the hospital and wanders the streets of Buenos Aires.

Up until the very end, The Beast Within seemed like a straightforward werewolf story where a father failed to control his demon and ended up attacking his own family. [Spoiler Alert] And it looked like the narrative had reached its conclusion when the daughter, Willow William Avery, killed her father, Noah, to protect her mother, Imogen, from his wrath. But then came a twist. In The Beast Within’s ending, Willow had a strange vision in which she saw her father, Noah, in human form, acting like a monster. Here, Noah, standing inside the torn-down ancestral castle, was kicking Imogen as though he wanted to kill the woman. And when Willow started sobbing, finding her mother in such a state, Noah looked at her and started imitating a wolf. Yes, he had been imitating a wolf throughout the film, which also points out that maybe there wasn’t any werewolf at all,...

Set in the 1950s, Campton Manor tells the story of author Teddy Roberts, who receives an unusual invitation to investigate the decades-old mystery surrounding a New Year’s party at the now-abandoned Campton Manor estate.

In 1922, twenty-eight party guests at the manor mysteriously died of heart attacks at the same time with no clear cause. Accompanied by the enthusiastic but cryptic Jack London, Teddy travels to the remote property, hoping to find inspiration by using his unique ability to communicate with the dead.

Upon arrival, Teddy’s ghostly encounters provide unsettling clues about the years-old tragedy. Interacting with spirits stuck forever replaying the fateful night, he aims to learn the truth about what truly happened. But as Teddy delves deeper into Campton Manor’s darkness, he discovers disturbing secrets that seem to implicate those closest to him in the manor’s disturbing past.

Directed by Cat Hostick and released in...

This year gifts us the 40th anniversary of the major motion picture “Streets of Fire.” In 1984, Walter Hill’s ambitious “rock & roll fable” sported a killer soundtrack and an all-star cast, how could it possibly have failed? Oh, right, it was released against both “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (the summer of 1984 was stacked). And that aforementioned all-star cast? Including Diane Lane, Willem Dafoe, Rick Moranis, Bill Paxton, and Amy Madigan? None of them were famous yet.

But, over the past 40 years, Hill’s “Streets of Fire” has developed quite a robust following. (In 1984, its biggest cultural footprint was probably the song “I Can Dream About You,” performed by fictional group The Sorels in the film and Dan Hartman in reality, which peaked at number six on Billboard’s Hot 100 and got extensive play on MTV.)

The plot? Well, describing...

So Help Me Todd, the story of a private detective and his lawyer mother, was canceled after two seasons, but don't despair – there have been plenty of light-hearted crime shows in the history of television that you can watch with your kids.

1. The Hardy Boys, 2020-2023

Frank and Joe Hardy are ordinary boys, sixteen and twelve years old. They play video games and ride bikes. The boys are very close to their mother, Laura, and their father Fenton, a police detective, is rarely involved in raising his sons.

The Hardy family's near-perfect life is shattered when Laura is tragically killed in a car accident. To help the boys cope with their grief, Fenton decides to move to Bridgeport for the summer to live with the boys' aunt and grandmother. It is here, in a quiet provincial town, that Joe and Frank's mysterious adventure begins as they search for clues to their mother's death.

What’s the connection between “Late Night with the Devil” and a real-life secret society? ( Photo Credit – IMDb )

Caution: spoilers ahead. Additionally, please take the content of this article with a grain of salt, as it essentially incorporates conspiracy theories. While some elements may be grounded in reality, they are heavily intertwined with conjecture. Avoid accepting anything stated here at face value.

“Late Night with the Devil,” the hit horror film that debuted at SXSW 2023, continues to dominate streaming platforms, earning praise and shattering records. Audiences are enthralled by its eerie depiction of a 1970s late-night talk show spiraling into darkness.

Set in the late 1970s, David Dastmalchian plays the host of a fictional show called “Night Owls.” In the movie, his character, Jack Delroy, gets tangled up with a secretive society and makes a deal with them for success using occult means. Even though the movie is made up,...

As Italian director Garrone steps onto the Academy Awards red carpet on March 10 with Best International Feature Film nominee Io Capitano, the real-life skipper who part inspired the drama will be watching and rooting for the film from afar.

West African born Fofana Amara was just 15 years old when he successfully skippered a rickety boat carrying 250 people across the Mediterranean from the Libyan coast in July 2014, to arrive off the Sicilian port of Augusta.

Proudly declaring “Io, capitano” (“I’m the captain”) when the coast guard boarded the ship, the youngster was immediately slammed in jail on charges of human trafficking.

It was just one stage of Amara’s perilous journey from the Republic of Guinea to Italy, passing by Libya, which had begun when he was 14 years old.

Eventually released from jail after the people he saved testified in his favor, Amara completed a nautical course in the Sicilian...

Harrison Ford in “Shrinking,” now streaming on Apple TV+. The Critics Choice Association (Cca) announced today that legendary actor Harrison Ford will receive the Career Achievement Award at the 29th annual Critics Choice Awards. The awards show, hosted by Chelsea Handler, will broadcast Live on The CW on Sunday, January 14, 2024. Ford currently stars in Apple TV+’s comedy series Shrinking for which he earned a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series this year, and stars opposite Helen Mirren in the Yellowstone spinoff series 1923. Ford will next be seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World, alongside Anthony Mackie and Liv Tyler. Harrison Ford has starred in many of the most successful and acclaimed films in cinema history, including the landmark Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and a total of eight Best Picture Oscar®-nominated movies.

To borrow a phrase from Jack London’s 1909 novel Martin Eden, which is a book that Twilight Singers frontman Greg Dulli once found profoundly inspirational, the Black Out the Windows box set represents the band’s “work performed.” Did you appreciate these recordings when they were new? Or are you interested in them based on their reputation? Unlike Eden, a proletarian striver-turned-famous author who chided latecomers for sucking up to him after he achieved fame for work already performed, Dulli is more understanding of latecomer. If you weren’t around...

A long time ago, in what might as well have been a galaxy far, far away, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) was a translator for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Now, this young woman lives in the Bay Area town of Fremont, a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley and a dozen or so Bart stops from San Francisco. Every day, she commutes from an apartment complex populated by Afghan immigrants into the City by the Bay, where she works in a fortune-cookie factory in Chinatown. Every evening, she returns home...

To characters in Babak Jalali’s Fremont, memories both serve an artistic purpose and function as nuisance to be dealt with. Unresolved experiences while serving as a translator to the U.S. Army in Afghanistan prevent refugee Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) from sleeping soundly in her new home of Fremont, California. She seeks sleeping pills from oddball psychiatrist Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington) who spends their sessions largely promoting the virtues of his favorite immigrant story: Jack London’s White Fang.

Later when fortune cookie factory owner Ricky (Eddie Tang) offers Donya a promotion from packaging the cookies to writing the messages that go inside, he leans on his instinct that her past pain will lend her a rich worldview from which to draw from as a writer. These plot machinations are rarely front and center in Fremont, and Donya’s seemingly-troubled past isn’t something she freely discusses with those around her.

After working as a translator for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is now staking out a new life in Fremont, California. Donya is exiled from her home and haunted by memories of those she left behind, and Babak Jalali’s wryly melancholic film watches her navigate the eponymous city as she tries to find a new place in the world.

Given Fremont’s monochrome photography and monotone punchlines, the comparisons that the film has drawn to the work of Jim Jarmusch are understandable. Jarmusch has described his 1984 sophomore feature Stranger Than Paradise as looking at America “through a foreigner’s eyes,” which is also the lens through which Jalali views the world of this film. Fremont is rendered as a strange and alienating place but one whose humdrum routines are alive with quirks and curiosities for those whose senses haven’t been dulled by familiarity.

A real-life Afghan refugee,...

Although set in a noirish Northern California, “Fremont” – which premiered at Sundance and plays in competition at Karlovy Vary this week – is a refugee story that’s firmly rooted in reality. Director Babak Jalali’s casting of real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada, a first-time actor, in the lead role gives some indication of his commitment to authenticity.

The hardboiled script, co-written with Carolina Cavalli, turns on a young woman, Donya, working in a Chinese fortune cookie factory while starved for sleep and wracked with Ptsd from her past life working with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. The tight dialogue lends another level of stylized sheen to the film, as does the appearance of two veteran actors in wry performances – Gregg Turkington as a Jack London-obsessed therapist, and Jeremy Allen White, best known for his role as master chef in TV series “The Bear,” as a lovelorn mechanic.

Come Sail Away: Marcello Runs Aground in Muddled Adaptation

Pietro Marcello returns to literature for inspiration in his third narrative feature (and French language debut), Scarlet (L’Envol), based on the 1923 novel Scarlet Sails by beloved Russian novelist Alexander Grin. Much like he did with Jack London’s Martin Eden (2019), utilizing the text loosely for his own unique vision, this is far removed from more traditional takes on Grin’s novel, like the 1961 Russian language version which hewed close to the original romantic fairy tale. Unfortunately, the liberties transposed upon the simplicity of Grin’s text results in an oddly disjointed take.…...

Italian director Pietro Marcello made a splash at the 2019 Venice Film Festival with the Jack London adaptation “Martin Eden.” That film about an idealistic man’s sentimental and moral education at the turn of the 20th century, distributed in the U.S. by Kino Lorber, more or less introduced the talents of heartthrob Luca Marinelli to Western audiences. Now, Marcello is partnering with the U.S. distributor once more, this time turning his camera on the story of a woman’s coming of age, with “Scarlet.” The cast includes Raphaël Thiéry, Louis Garrel, and newcomer Juliette Jouan. IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for the film, which premiered at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, below.

Per the official synopsis, shortly after World War I, veteran Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) returns home from the frontlines to find himself a widower and father to an infant daughter. Raised by her father in rural Normandy, the...

Nicholas Philibert, whose film On the Adamant won the Golden Bear at the 73rd Berlinale on Saturday, has made a lifetime commitment to observational documentary, moving between interviews and long, patient takes of his subjects pursuing what it is that they do. The best known of these is Etre et Avoir (2002), which followed a year in the life of a tiny rural school where the single teacher – kindly but exacting, in the French manner – taught several grades at once. Thanks to the magnetism of this committed teacher – and of his delightful enfants, of course – Etre et Avoir became an unlikely but enduring arthouse hit.

Related Story Berlin Film Festival Winners: French Documentary ‘On The Adamant’ By Nicolas Philibert Wins Golden Bear Related Story HBO Acquires Berlin Fest Buzz Title 'Reality;' Breakout For Its 'Euphoria' Star Sydney Sweeney As Leaker Reality Winner In Tina Satter-Helmed Docudrama Related Story Sundance...

“The fortune you’re looking for is in another cookie,” reads one of the many custom fortune cookie messages featured in “Fremont,” a lovely, low-budget mood piece with a hypnotically deadpan temperament, which flew largely below the radar at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. While Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s easygoing fable-like movie serves up such oracular tidbits in abundance, this one defines his central character best. She is Donya (real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada), a lonesome and restless Afghan immigrant working at a family-owned fortune cookie factory in San Francisco by day, and enduring severe insomnia by night, in a Fremont apartment complex that also houses other immigrants from her motherland.

Donya can’t sleep for several reasons, though the aforementioned morsel recognizes at least one: What she’s looking for in life seems to be elsewhere. It’s certainly not in her dead-end job or uncomplicated social life.

There’s a loose template to many films that find a platform at Sundance and frequently disappear into the ether thereafter — the small-scale, muted mood piece that ambles along until something significant finally happens in the last half-hour or so. Your enjoyment of the quietly humorous character study Fremont will depend on your patience for that model. Still, there’s much to appreciate in the seldom explored Afghan immigrant milieu and the droll decision of director Babak Jalali and co-writer Carolina Cavalli to plonk their young protagonist down in a family-run Chinese fortune cookie factory.

London-based Iranian filmmaker Jalali casts Anaita Wali Zada — a former national television presenter forced to flee the Taliban after the fall of Kabul — as Donya, who worked as a translator at U.S. Army bases. That “traitorous” background earns her the hostility of a neighbor living in the same housing complex populated by Afghan refugees in...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Music Box Films releases the film in select theaters on Friday, August 25.

A former translator for American troops in Kabul — a role that eventually allowed her to leave her birth country but left her with unresolved feelings of guilt and shame — 20something Donya now lives by herself in a Fremont, California, apartment complex full of other Afghan immigrants. Whatever sense of community Donya gets from the other people in the building doesn’t seem to alleviate her quiet isolation, even if neighbors like Suleyman (Timur Nusratty) and Salim (Siddique Ahmed) are readily available for wistful conversation at all hours of the night.

When the sun comes up, Donya commutes to her job at a Chinese-owned fortune cookie factory, where she’s responsible for printing out the cryptic sayings that other people will eventually translate for themselves. That...

Frank Miller ("Sin City") will develop a new TV series adaptation of Hugo Pratt’s 1967 "Corto Maltese" graphic novels, as a six-episode live action-adventure series in partnership with StudioCanal and Canal+:

"...'Corto Maltese', an adventurer from Valetta, Malta, was born in 1887 to a British sailor and an Andalusian gypsy prostitute/witch.

"Seeking excitement and wealth, Corto traveled the world, befriending people from all walks of life, while participating in many hair-raising historical events, including the 'Russian Civil War', 'World War I' and the 'Russo-Japanese War', with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Jack London, Herman Hesse and Joseph Conrad..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Exclusive: Studiocanal will back a live-action series adaptation of the Hugo Pratt Corto Maltese graphic novel series, with Sin City’s Frank Miller to be its creator, writer and executive producer. In conjunction with Canal+, Studiocanal will develop six hourlong episodes.

The series EP is Jemma Rodgers (The Railway Children Return), along with Silenn Thomas, latter of whom is CEO of Frank Miller Ink. Overseeing VFX is Phil Tippett, whose work includes the Star Wars and Jurassic Park franchises and Willow. Studiocanal EVP Global Production Ron Halpern and Executive Managing Director TV Francoise Guyonnet will oversee for the studio.

Pratt launched the series in 1967. Maltese is a daring sea captain whose adventures took place in the early part of the 20th century. The lavishly drawn adventure tale melded fantasy with reality as Maltese came in contact with some of the most influential characters from literature – Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Butch...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"

Where You Can Stream It: Netflix

The Pitch: In addition to being the final Coen Brothers film, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is the most charming anthology Western about death you're ever likely to see. It's not only about death, but the specter of human mortality looms over all six segments of this film, which unfolds like a collection of short stories, complete with an actual book and the turning of pages onscreen.

In each story, a character meets their match in some way, whether it be through a musically inclined gunslinger or a math-inclined chicken. The sum total is a masterful, Oscar-nominated anthology where each tale holds its own pleasures yet also...

Click here to read the full article.

The European Works in Progress Cologne (Ewip) couldn’t have come at a better time.

For a European art house industry in crisis — box office revenues for specialty films remain well below pre-pandemic levels while the cost of producing films has only gone up —the need for exciting new “content” in the form of films that will draw audiences back to the theatres, has arguably never been greater.

For the past three days, some of Europe’s top festival programmers and international sales agents have gathered in the western German city to check out arthouse productions at various stages of development that promise to be the breakout projects of the coming months.

Programmers from the Cannes, Berlin, Venice and San Sebastián festivals, as well as from Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Tribeca and elsewhere, as well as sales heavyweights including mk2, The Match Factory, Charades...

Click here to read the full article.

It’s been a memorable few years for Nicolas Cage, or at least it looks that way to his sizable fan base.

A noted period of extremely prolific yet mostly uncelebrated work in the low-budget world of filmmaking was punctured by a ferocious performance in Panos Cosmatos’ wild action horror Mandy in 2018, while his uncharacteristically quiet — but equally intense — turn in last year’s Pig would bring him the sort of critical acclaim not seen since he won an Oscar for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas.

Earlier this year came the ultimate tribute, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he played a fictionalized version of himself. Now, the much-loved cult icon comes to Toronto with another landmark achievement. Incredibly (and Cage thinks so, too), Butcher’s Crossing from director Gabe Polsky marks the star’s first ever Western. Based on the book by John Williams,...

Long before Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro, or Wes Anderson and Bill Murray, John Huston and Humphrey Bogart were one of the great director-actor combos of Hollywood's Golden Age. Their first collaboration, "The Maltese Falcon," gave the actor his big breakthrough and one of his defining roles as the cynical private eye, Sam Spade.

It made Bogart a star and five more films followed, with the partnership resulting in Bogie's only Oscar win, playing a booze-soaked riverboat captain in "The African Queen." In between, it was Huston's turn; he picked up the only Academy Awards of his long career for Best Director and Best Screenplay for "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," often regarded as the duo's best film and Huston's masterpiece.

Adapted from the novel by B. Traven, "Sierre Madre" is a riveting study of greed, following three down-on-their-luck Americans in search of gold in Mexico. When they strike rich,...

Neapolitan director Pietro Marcello, who made the transition from high-profile docs to fiction with his Naples-set 2019 adaptation of Jack London’s Martin Eden – that made a splash on the international art-house scene – has now tackled a France-set tale inspired by a Russian novel in his new film “Scarlet” (see review) that mixes fable, musical, historical and magical realism elements.

The pic’s central character is Juliette, played by promising newcomer Juliette Jouan, an orphan girl raised by a community of women and by her father Raphaël, a burly soldier who returned from the First World War to find that his adored wife after giving birth had passed away.

Marcello spoke to Variety about what he calls his first ‘feminine’ film. Excerpts.

There is a strong sense of matriarchy in this film. You’ve underlined its feminine aspect.

I’ve always made films that are quite masculine. “Martin Eden” certainly was.

Exclusive: Brad Anderson, the multi-hyphenate behind the iconic Christian Bale thriller The Machinist, has signed with Paradigm for representation.

Anderson is a writer, director and producer whose 2004 breakout feature told the story of industrial worker Trevor Reznik (Bale), who began to doubt his own sanity after going without sleep for a year. He recently directed an episode of HBO Max’s acclaimed DC series Peacemaker, and two installments (including the pilot) of Netflix’s chart-topping thriller Clickbait, most recently wrapping production on the horror-thriller Blood, starring Michelle Monaghan and Skeet Ulrich. That upcoming film follows Jess (Monaghan), whose son Owen (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) is hit with a mysterious infection after being bitten by a dog at the old farmhouse the family has just moved back into.

Anderson has also directed features including the thriller Fractured, starring Sam Worthington, Lily Rabe and Stephen Tobolowsky, for Netflix; the historical C.I.A. thriller Beirut,...

Daniel Craig’s take on James Bond is now forever set in stone.

After the final installment of Craig’s turn as Bond, the Faroe Islands commissioned a custom grave to honor the filming location of “No Time to Die.” The island of Kalsoy served as the villain’s lair for Bond’s nemesis Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who ultimately kills the famed MI6 agent.

The grave is positioned near the Kallur lighthouse on the island and reads, “In Memory of James Bond, 1962–2021,” as reported by the official Guide to the Faroe Islands page.

“Local villagers have taken it upon themselves to erect a tombstone in memory of the renowned spy,” the statement reads. “Made from Faroese basalt, the gravestone has been cut by an acclaimed stonemason in the village of Skopun. It has then been transported to the exact location on Kalsoy, where Bond meets his fate in ‘No Time to Die.

Veteran filmmakers Michael Relph and Basil Dearden try a hip ‘n’ flip costume comedy about an 1899 consortium that’s the equivalent of Murder Inc.: Killings for hire done with veddy proper civility and good taste. The charming Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg lead a notable cast — Telly Savalas, Curd Jürgens, Philippe Noiret, Beryl Reid, Clive Revill — through mayhem-filled chases in several European capitals. Tossed off in tongue-in-cheek style, it’s shallow but cute, and if you like the stars it can be a lark. Its saving grace is the spirited Ms. Rigg.

The Assassination Bureau

Region-Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 86

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / The Assassination Bureau Limited / Street Date October 29, 2021 / Available from [Imprint] or Amazon /

Starring: Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Curd Jürgens, Philippe Noiret, Warren Mitchell, Beryl Reid, Clive Revill, Kenneth Griffith, Vernon Dobtcheff, Annabella Incontrera, Jess Conrad, George Coulouris.

Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth

Art Director: Michael Relph

Film...

The story of ‘Into the wild’ is so outrageous, that it couldn’t be anything else but true. In 1990, twenty year-old Christopher McCandless (Chris) graduated from Emory University with straight A’s. Instead of going into Harvard law or venturing into the world to become a man of success, he chose the road less traveled. A self-confessed disciple of Thoreau, Tolstoy and Jack London, he wished to escape the lies of civilization. He planned to live a solitary life in the midst of the ‘most ancient of human conditions’. So, he donated his college fund of $24000 to charity, burnt up all his credit and ID cards, abandoned his car in the middle of the desert and set out on foot to Alaska. Where he met a tragic end.

Now, let me digress a bit to prepare the background for my somewhat biased review. It’s been hardly two weeks since my convocation.

Pietro Marcello, the critically acclaimed Italian filmmaker of the Venice prize-winning “Martin Eden,” has just started shooting “Scarlet” (“L’envol”), a French-language drama set in Northern Normandy. Orange Studio has acquired international sales rights to the film which will be distributed in France by Le Pacte.

Charles Gillibert, whose Paris-based outfit CG Cinema previously delivered award-winning films such as Deniz Erguven’s “Mustang” and Leos Carax’s “Annette,” is producing “Scarlet” with Avventurosa and Rai Cinema in Italy, in collaboration with Ilya Stewart (Hype Film) and Antonio Miyakawa (Wise Pictures).

Marcello penned the script with his regular screenwriting partner Maurizio Braucci (“Gomorra”), as well as Maud Ameline (“Amanda”), with the participation of the novelist Geneviève Brisac.

The film is set between the two world wars, a time of great inventions, and follows the journey of a young woman who was raised by her father, a widowed war veteran, and strives...

This Italian adaptation of London’s 1909 novel follows the ascent of a proletarian novelist to popular success which proves a bitter disappointment

The terrible loneliness of success is the subject of this absorbing movie, equal in some strange way to the loneliness of failure; it’s also about the secret and shameful feeling that failure is the one truthful state of being, which the successful person has had to renounce. Martin Eden is also about capitalism and enterprise and the great 20th-century promise that hard work and an audacious gamble on a certain career path at the start of one’s life can carry anyone, however lowly born, on to riches. And more importantly, it is about the dizzying promise that the mass communication made possible by commerce will make art itself lucrative: that actually writing novels, capturing the imagination of millions, could exalt you to heroic celebrity.

Martin Eden...

Premiere Entertainment has acquired the international rights to family faith-based film “The Girl Who Believes in Miracles” after the film’s solid performance at the U.S. box office over Easter.

The Oklahoma-shot feature was written and directed by “Hannah Montana” co-creator Richard Correll and stars Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino (“The Mighty Aphrodite”); Austyn Johnson (“The Greatest Showman”) and celebrated voice actor Pete Coyote (“The Roosevelts: An Intimate History”).

The feature, co-written by G.M. Mercier, focuses on a child called Sara (Johnson) who achieves overnight fame when her prayers appear to start healing local townsfolk.

These miracles come at a cost however, as the toll of fame and the girl’s deteriorating physical condition force those close to her to take action.

Produced by Trailmaker Productions and Gerson Productions in association with film investors Stephen Hays and Peter Graham’s 120dB Films, the title was released via Atlas Distribution to a total of 1,333 U.

While he earned acclaim with Lost and Beautiful, The Mouth of the Wolf, and more, Pietro Marcello received a much-deserved breakthrough with his astounding, textured drama Martin Eden. The Italian director quickly followed up that Jack London adaptation with the documentary For Lucio this year but now he’s plotting his next narrative feature.

Arte France Cinéma has announced today they are backing his new film titled L’Envol (roughly translated to The Flight), which is set to star Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, and Noémie Lvovsky. Loosely inspired by Aleksandr Grin’s 1923 novel Scarlet Sails, the romantic tale will follow “the emancipation of a woman over twenty years, between 1919 and 1939, a time of great inventions and great dreams.”

With a score by Gabriel Yared, shooting is set to begin in Normandy and Hauts-de-France starting this August, so we could expect a festival premiere in 2022.

Read our recent interview...

Jack London is no stranger to film adaptations. His novel White Fang has been filmed at least eleven times over the last century, To Build A Fire has inspired at least half a dozen shorts. Martin Eden has been filmed before too, first by early film polymath Hobart Bosworth in 1914, just six years after first publication.

The novel itself is heavily autobiographical, the protagonist an autodidactic seaman, caught by ambition to be a writer. The text itself is set in Oakland, the turn of that century, all steam packets and laundry and locomotives, word-rated periodicals (if only!) and cycles of postage and rejection letters. Maurizio Braucci and Pietro Marcello (who co-writes (adapts?), directs) transfer the setting and in the process add depth to their adaptation.

Italy, the 1970s or so, unions and unrest, brown suits on red politics. Caught not just with archive footage but colour-grading and tone and lighting,...

Cinematographer is Oscar-nominated for The Trial Of The Chicago 7.

It has been an eventful few days for US cinematographer Phedon Papamichael. On Monday he garnered his second Oscar nomination for his work on The Trial Of The Chicago 7, following his first for Nebraska in 2014, just hours before he gave a masterclass as part of the Doha Film Institute’s online Qumra event.

The director of photography, who lives between his native Greece and Los Angeles, recounted how his father had been an art director and production designer who worked with the likes of Jules Dassin and John Cassavetes. “I was...

Cinematographer is Oscar-nominated for The Trial Of The Chicago 7.

It has been an eventful few days for US cinematographer Phedon Papamichael. On Monday he garnered his second Oscar nomination for his work on The Trial Of The Chicago 7, following his first for Nebraska in 2014, just hours before he gave a masterclass as part of the Doha Film Institute’s online Qumra event.

The director of photography, who lives between his native Greece and Los Angeles, recounted how his father had been an art director and production designer who worked with the likes of Jules Dassin and John Cassavetes. “I was...

The director of 2019’s critically acclaimed Martin Eden returns with For Lucio, a slim, charming documentary about one of Italy’s premier post-war crooners. Lucio Dalla, born in Bologna in 1943, witnessed Italy’s recovery from the destruction of the second World War as his pastoral Bolognese childhood was replaced by rapid industrialization in a country that was painfully losing its social and cultural identity. It may be brief at 78 minutes, but this is a rewarding film, mostly pivoting on a series of interviews with the singer’s manager Tobia, who regales stories of Lucio from his early days hustling for gigs in Rome to a nationally renowned artist with a powerful social conscience.

A former child star, Lucio started on the Italian jazz scene as a clarinettist, only moving into singing because being in the band didn’t earn him enough money. “Singing wasn’t in my plans,” he says...

An unlikely musical hero whose songs criticised Italian politics and society (one inspired by a Guardian story), appears in a lovingly constructed doc

Pietro Marcello is the director who recently gave us the much-praised drama Martin Eden, transposing the Jack London novel to Italy. Now he has made this documentary, a labour-of-love tribute to one of Bologna’s most favoured sons: the musician and singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla. It’s probably addressed to Dalla’s existing fanbase, rather than newcomers (which I admit includes me) but this is an engaging study, opening a window into the heart of postwar Italy, and incidentally gives a cameo role to this newspaper.

Dalla emerges from the film somewhere between America’s Bob Dylan and Belgium’s Jacques Brel, but otherwise completely in a genre of his own. He was a former cherubic child star who acted, sang and played instruments and grew up to...

French animation studio Superprod, the company behind standout feature films such as the Jack London adaptation “White Fang” and Oscar-nominated “Song of the Sea,” has acquired a majority stake in Italy’s Red Monk Studio and plans to revamp the Milan-based company and turn it into a prominent Italian animation player.

Pedro Citaristi (pictured), former international sales manager for Superprod’s Superights sales unit, has been appointed Red Monk’s managing director and producer, as part of the deal.

It will see Red Monk — which is best known for premium kiddie series “My Unbelievable School” — continue to operate as a separate label from Superprod. The company’s founders Lucia Geraldine Scott and Corrado Diodà are remaining on board at Red Monk respectively as producer and head of production.

The stated goal is to basically create a new animation studio, based in Milan, that will be working with Italian and international...

Mubi the premier streaming service for curated independent films, has revealed its lineup for February. Among the eclectic selection of films coming exclusively to Mubi are “Dead Pigs”, the bold directorial debut by Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan and Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden”, a compelling adaptation of Jack London’s novel, starring Luca Marinelli. Mubi will also exclusively present Beginning, the striking feature debut by Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, which has been selected as Georgia’s official selection for the 93rd Academy Awards, and Werner Herzog’s deeply personal documentary “Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin” featuring his late friend and travel writer Bruce Chatwin.

In February, Mubi is proud to partner with Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program to spotlight a collection of films made by Sundance Institute Fellows. Reflecting the support given to independent storytelling by artists of Indigenous descent, this special selection includes films such...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Beginning (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

Originally a Cannes selection, then coming to San Sebastian, TIFF, and NYFF where it picked up deserved awards, the Georgian film Beginning is a difficult, sometimes brutal film to watch and then unpack. Déa Kulumbegashvili’s debut is a look at the confines, both religious and familial, put on one woman’s (Ia Sukhitashvili) life as she wrestles with outer and inner demons. Both a lonely and patient film, Beginning acts as mirror and portal, creating turmoil and strife for audience and subject. Challenging yet rewarding, Beginning is phenomenal. – Michael F.

Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)

The Dig (Simon Stone)

When Simon Stone’s...

Exclusive: Jason Scott Lee (Mulan) is set as a lead opposite Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Kathleen Rose Perkins in Disney+’s upcoming comedy series Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.

Written by Kourtney Kang and set in present-day Hawaii, Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. reimagines the Neil Patrick Harris-starring Doogie Howser M.D. as a half-hour medical dramedy with a female lead. It follows Lahela “Doogie” Kameāloha (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a 16-year-old mixed-race girl who juggles a budding medical career and life as a teenager. Guiding Lahela — and also complicating things — is her family, including her spitfire Irish mother Dr. Clara Hannon (Perkins), who’s also Chief of Staff at the hospital and Lahela’s supervisor, and her Hawaiian “Local Boy” father (Jason Scott Lee) who struggles to accept that his daughter is no longer his little girl.

Lee’s Benny Kameāloha worked in finance on the mainland, but gave that up...

New Indie

Slated to open in theaters right when the pandemic lockdowns started, and subsequently lost in the 2020 shuffle, Cannes award-winner “The Climb” (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) is a smart comedy you might have missed. Co-writers Michael Angelo Covino (who also directed) and Kyle Marvin star as lifelong friends Mike and Kyle who may, as it turns out, be dragging each other down. A playful and occasionally ouch-y spin on the buddy comedy, this film may well be a calling card for two up-and-coming comic talents.

Also available: Mel Gibson makes a very non-traditional Santa Claus in the dark holiday comedy “Fatman” (Saban/Paramount), but Walton Goggins steals the show as the hitman hired to dispatch St. Nick; Adam Brody stars as “The Kid Detective” (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), whose boozy grown-up existence doesn’t quite reflect his youthful potential; “Synchronic” (Well Go USA Entertainment) stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan...

Exclusive: A comedy drama co-written by Gavin and Stacey star Mat Horne and a thriller based on Jack London’s manuscript of The Assassination Bureau Ltd and are two of the latest TV projects being set up by British producer Fired Up Films.

The company is doubling down on the scripted side of its business, having recently scored a two-hour order for producing Laurence Fishburne-narrated doc The Hunt for Hitler’s U-Boat for History on the factual side.

Horne, best known for his on-screen performance in the James Corden and Ruth Jones-penned BBC comedy, is writing Loose with actor-turned-screenwriter Christopher Adlington.

The series is a multi-cultural comedy about a man on the run, which Horne says is inspired by the pair’s love of 1980s caper movies such as Midnight Run. It tells the story of Howie Doohan, a Wall Street trader and father of a disabled child,...

Traditionally, many sailors have refrained from learning how to swim. The reasoning behind this is that if one falls overboard far from land, and without hope of rescue, a quick death is better than a slow one. Martin Eden is not that sort of sailor. He is a man who swims against the tide, determined to carry himself as far as he can. It is only this kind of unrestrained hope than can bring a man face to face with true despair.

A sailor still, he is, though transplanted in this film to Italy, far from the Californian setting of Jack London's novel. There are still factory workers here but we feel more keenly the presence of the peasants and the shadow of more ancient class divides. Like Daniel Keys' Algernon, Martin is a happy-go-lucky character when we first meet him, broadly satisfied with the life he has despite.

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.***Robert Aldrich was an in-between-days kind of filmmaker, flourishing as television was conquering cinema, graduating from being an assistant director to Lewis Milestone and Joseph Losey. Hollywood was already in decline/transition as he found his footing. Aldrich rarely knew the security of a studio contract, was usually a struggling independent, was pushed around by stars and producers, and went into a career decline in the seventies with a series of projects which either failed to find an audience or failed to deserve one. Some of these films have enthusiastic admirers, but Aldrich was unable to realize passion projects like The Sheltering Sky, which he had hoped to film from Paul Bowles' novel,...

There’s no shortage of stuff to watch on Netflix this month, but today is bringing a few new things that you may want to check out. And if you’re a fan of a certain horror anthology show or really enjoy Christmas movies, you’re going to be extra excited about these latest additions.

First of all, American Horror Story: 1984 is joining the platform today, but though it’s sporting a quirky name, it’s actually season 9 of the popular series. And it’s definitely one of the most unique, as 1984 takes a lot of inspiration from classic slasher flicks like Halloween and Friday the 13th, a departure from some of the more cerebral horror of its earlier entries. If you’re looking for a creepy good time, this should do the trick.

Secondly, if you like a good holiday film, you’ll want to check out Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey.