Latest news with #CannesDirectors'Fortnight
Broadcast Pro
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Broadcast Pro
Sony Pictures Classics acquires rights to Iraqi film ‘The President's Cake'
The film is made in association with Missing Piece Films, Working Barn Productions, Maiden Voyage Pictures and Spark Features. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and India for Cannes Caméra d'Or winner The President's Cake by Iraqi director Hasan Hadi. Iraqi director Hasan Hadi has won the People's Choice audience award at the second edition of the Cannes Directors' Fortnight for his debut feature The President's Cake. The award, the only audience-voted prize among the Cannes Official Selection and its parallel sections, marks a major international recognition for Hadi and a powerful moment for Iraqi cinema. Based in New York, Hadi drew from his own childhood experiences growing up in southern Iraq during the 1990s, under the regime of Saddam Hussein and the harsh conditions imposed by international sanctions. His film tells the story of Lamia, a nine-year-old girl tasked with bringing a birthday cake to school to celebrate the president's birthday—a seemingly simple mission that becomes a daunting struggle for survival in a time of extreme scarcity. The consequences of failure could be devastating for her and her family. Produced by Leah Chen Baker under the New York-based banner TPC Film LLC, The President's Cake is being sold internationally by Films Boutique, while UTA is handling distribution in North America. The Directors' Fortnight, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival known for its focus on bold and independent filmmaking, does not use a traditional jury system. Instead, the People's Choice award, which includes a €7,500 ($8,400) cash prize, is determined entirely by audience votes. The award was established last year in partnership with the Chantal Akerman Foundation to honor the legacy of the late Belgian filmmaker, whose groundbreaking works such as Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles were closely tied to the spirit of the Fortnight.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Resurrection' Review: Bi Gan's Extravagant Act of Surrender to the Seductions of a Century of Cinema
Do you remember when we used to watch movies with the undivided attention we give to our dreams? Bi Gan, the Chinese director behind 2018's 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' sure does. And so, seven years later, his return — or his 'Resurrection' — arrives: a marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition that is actually five or six movies, each at once playful and peculiar and part of an overarchingly melancholy elegy for the dream of 20th-century cinema and the lives we lived within it. It is, of course, a paradox to make a film that requires of the viewer the exact spirit of guileless abandon whose disappearance it is built to mourn. But then every moment of 'Resurrection' exists on the pivot of a paradox, all of which have their origin in a fundamentally paradoxical premise: a near-future (which is maybe just a curt appraisal of our post-pandemic present) in which dreams are cinema and cinema is dreams, which is bad news for both because nobody dreams anymore. More from Variety 'The Party's Over' Review: South of France-Set Satire Follows an Escalating Class Conflict Cannes Directors' Fortnight: 'The President's Cake,' Iraq's First Film at the Festival, Wins People's Choice Audience Award Cannes Directors' Fortnight: Valéry Carnoy's 'Wild Foxes' Wins Best European Film Prize Silent movie-style intertitles explain the almost comically unwieldy sci-fi basis, part 'Stalker,' a dash of 'Blade Runner,' all crazy, so here goes: Humankind has discovered the key to longevity is to stop dreaming – the analogy, that becomes one of the many motifs, is of a wax candle that can last forever if it is never lit. But there are some dissenters who would prefer to burn through shorter, brighter lives. Bi Gan, co-writing with Bai Xue, dubs these willful dreamers 'Fantasmers,' and explains how dangerous they are, how they 'bring chaos to history' and 'make time jump.' And so there are other individuals, called 'Big Others' who are gifted with the power to tell illusion from reality, and are sent to find the Fantasmers, who are holed up in their imaginary movie worlds, and to preserve the linearity of time by waking them up. From the start, we are inside these nesting dream-state stories, each corresponding to a different, successive era of cinema, and each one also corresponding to one of the five senses. The silent-cinema-aping, sight-related first section functions as an introduction to the Fantasmer, played by Jackson Yee in all five of the character's different incarnations, and his pursuing Big Other played by Shu Qi, resplendent in a high-necked silk blouse of a color that, after Tang Wei's dress in 'Long Day's Journey' should hereafter be dubbed 'Bi Gan green.' This section is also the most exquisite showcase of Liu Qiang and Tu Nan's baroquely ornamented production design, as this time the Fantasmer is an outright movie monster, a kind of Nosferatu-meets-Quasimodo, and the world he is hiding in is like an ornate dollhouse diorama of a chinese opium den, complete with stop-motion wood-cut puppets in the background. But turning a corner, it is now a German expressionist maze of canted angles and shadows, through which Shu Qi dances like Moira Shearer in 'The Red Shoes,' while the 'Vertigo' love theme — or a stretch of M83's bravura, chameleonic score that sounds incredibly like it — creates an obsessive romance between the monster and the woman sent to kill him. Catch him she does, but as she tells us, suddenly in voiceover, she is moved by his commitment to his dream life and though she cannot change his destiny, she wishes to give him a gentle death. So she cracks him open and sets a projector device whirring inside him, which causes the Fantasmer to resurface as a handsome young man in a wartime spy noir — all fedoras and train stations and 'Lady From Shanghai' mirror shoot-outs — where he stands accused of murdering a man (Yan Nan) by stabbing him in the ear with a fountain pen. While this hearing-focused segment may be the least self-containedly coherent, it is as always elevated by some remarkable imagery: Sheet music flutters; a bomb shatters the roof of the train station; a pair of bloodied hands work a theremin. Wax melts. The Big Other muses. The Fantasmer shows up 30 years later as a worker abandoned in a ruined Buddhist temple, where he encounters the Spirit of Bitterness (Chen Yongzhong), who has been hiding in his rotten tooth, in a loosely taste-based fable that plays like a Chinese folk tale of trickster deities pranking a hapless victim. And then, 20 years later again, the Fantasmer is a rapscallion father-figure to a young girl (Guo Mucheng), whom he trains to fake a supernatural ability to 'smell' the correct chosen playing card from a deck. And finally, it is New Years Eve, 1999, and the Fantasmer is a callow young bleached-blond hoodlum who has never kissed a girl, and the girl (Li Gengxi) is a bewitching creature in half-moon sunglasses and high-top Converse straight from a '90s Wong Kar-wai movie, who has perhaps kissed plenty of guys, but who has never bitten anybody. Unfolding in a 40-minute long unbroken take, and taking in fistfights and shootouts and entire karaoke numbers, this segment does not have quite the same transportative levitating grace of the equivalent hair-raisingly transcendent 3D section of 'Long Day's Journey,' but it amazes in different ways. Like when the filter changes from red to blue as a window shatters or when Dong Jingsong's miraculously mobile camera stills for a spell to observe a street party in which time-lapse people move in rapid fast-motion while a silent movie plays at normal speed in the background. Other than the trickery of time and subjectivity (and the occasional suitcase), there is little carried over from one story to the next. But with each structured as some sort of pursuit — of a murderer, of enlightenment, of a big score, of a girl — and all contained within the broader context of the Big Other's pursuit of the Fantasmer, 'Resurrection' even at its most obscure is easy to parse as a long game of chase through allusions both lofty and lowbrow, from the high art of many of its influences all the way down to the inclusion of a riddle whose solution is 'a fart.' During the pandemic, which was when Bi Gan began to entirely reconceive the film that would become 'Resurrection,' one of the more curious side-effects of sudden isolation was the widespread epidemic of unusually vivid dreams. At the same time, the old-model cinema Bi Gan so loves is being assailed by myriad developments in technology and viewing habits, as our ability — or even desire — to immerse ourselves in art has become ever more stunted. In Bi Gan's worldview, this is an occasion for sorrow, as there is something inexpressibly beautiful about the sensorial illusion of cinema, and something inexpressibly noble about seeking refuge within it, even if that means removing yourself from reality where things, presumably, get done rather than just dreamt. 'Resurrection,' with all its extraordinarily intricate ambition is hardly what you could call a manifesto, and it will undoubtedly challenge viewers who have been trained to expect simpler structures, but for those who miss the way the movies used to act on us, it does offer up a uniquely pleasurable challenge, and a dazzlingly cineliterate lesson in the lost art of letting go. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Broadcast Pro
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Broadcast Pro
Iraqi film ‘The President's Cake' wins Cannes Directors' Fortnight audience award
The film is being sold internationally by Films Boutique, with UTA handling North American rights. Iraqi director Hasan Hadi has won the People's Choice audience award at the second edition of the Cannes Directors' Fortnight for his debut feature The President's Cake. The award, the only audience-voted prize among the Cannes Official Selection and its parallel sections, marks a major international recognition for Hadi and a powerful moment for Iraqi cinema. Based in New York, Hadi drew from his own childhood experiences growing up in southern Iraq during the 1990s, under the regime of Saddam Hussein and the harsh conditions imposed by international sanctions. His film tells the story of Lamia, a nine-year-old girl tasked with bringing a birthday cake to school to celebrate the president's birthday—a seemingly simple mission that becomes a daunting struggle for survival in a time of extreme scarcity. The consequences of failure could be devastating for her and her family. Produced by Leah Chen Baker under the New York-based banner TPC Film LLC, The President's Cake is being sold internationally by Films Boutique, while UTA is handling distribution in North America. The Directors' Fortnight, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival known for its focus on bold and independent filmmaking, does not use a traditional jury system. Instead, the People's Choice award, which includes a €7,500 ($8,400) cash prize, is determined entirely by audience votes. The award was established last year in partnership with the Chantal Akerman Foundation to honor the legacy of the late Belgian filmmaker, whose groundbreaking works such as Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles were closely tied to the spirit of the Fortnight.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nanni Moretti In Intensive Care In Rome Hospital Following Heart Attack
Italian director Nanni Moretti was reported to be in intensive care in a stable condition on Wednesday evening after suffering a heart attack earlier in the day. Italian media reported that the Dear Diary and The Son's Room filmmaker had fallen ill in the afternoon and been taken to Rome's San Camillo Hospital where he was operated on immediately. More from Deadline Todd Haynes To Be Honored By Cannes Directors' Fortnight With Golden Carriage Award Rural Coming-Of-Age Tale 'Holy Cow' Poised To Travel The World After Charming Audiences In France Cannes Sets Date For 2025 Official Selection Announcement Moretti previously suffered a heart attack last October, which forced him to cancel his attendance of the premiere of Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman's drama Vittoria, which he produced under the banner of his company Sacher Film. He was seen most recently at the Bari International Film & TV Festival in southern Italy in March for a retrospective of his work. One of Italy's best known directors, Moretti has premiered nine films in Competition at Cannes, winning Best Director for Dear Diary in 1994 and the Palme d'Or for The Son's Room in 2001. In more recent years, he won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury for Mia Madre in 2015 and was last at the festival with A Brighter Tomorrow in 2023, which his last film to date. Best of Deadline TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Everything We Know About 'Black Mirror' Season 7 So Far 'The White Lotus' Season 3 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Arrive On Max?
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Palestinian Refugee Drama ‘To a Land Unknown' Sells to 40 Territories Ahead of U.K., Ireland Release (EXCLUSIVE)
Paris- and Berlin-based sales and production house Salaud Morisset has sold Palestinian-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel's Palestinian refugee drama 'To a Land Unknown,' which premiered at Cannes Directors' Fortnight, to 40 territories. The film is released in the U.K. and Ireland on Friday. Salaud Morisset has signed new deals with Imovision (Brazil), Vertigo Media (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia), Joint Entertainment (Taiwan), Real Fiction (Germany), Five Stars (Ex Yugoslavia), Filmtrade (Greece), Filmladen (Austria), Filmin (Spain), Portugal (The Stone & The Plot) and Falcon Pictures (Indonesia). More from Variety Juliette Binoche to Preside Over 78th Cannes Film Festival Jury Cannes Film Festival President Iris Knobloch Re-Elected for Second Term 'Eat the Night' Review: A Dying MMORPG Evokes the Apocalypse in a Tender-Hearted Queer French Drama Previously announced deals include Conic (U.K.), Wildcard (Ireland), Eurozoom (France), Watermelon Pictures (U.S., Canada) and Film Clinic (Arab territories). 'To a Land Unknown' screened at more than 100 festivals including San Sebastian, Toronto, London, Thessaloniki, New Horizons and Sarajevo, and won more than 20 awards. The film tells the story of the desperate attempts of two Palestinian cousins stranded in Athens to find a way to reach Germany. Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan, which involves them posing as smugglers and taking hostages in an effort to get him and his best friend out of their hopeless environment before it is too late. 'To a Land Unknown' is produced by Geoff Arbourne at Inside Out Films, Fleifel's Nakba FilmWorks, Salaud Morisset, Maria Drandaki at Homemade Films, and Layla Meijman and Maarten van der Ven at Studio Ruba. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Grammy Predictions, From Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar: Who Will Win? Who Should Win? What's Coming to Netflix in February 2025
