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Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
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Jeremy Strong Says Serving on Cannes Jury Was ‘Like 'Conclave' With Champagne' and Celebrates Palme d'Or Winner ‘It Was Just an Accident': It ‘Changed Me'
Jeremy Strong is reflecting on his past 11 days as a member of the Cannes Film Festival competition jury, comparing it to the process of choosing a new pope as depicted in the Oscar-winning film 'Conclave.' 'I feel immeasurably inspired by what I've seen here,' Strong said during a press conference after the jury awarded Jafar Panahi's 'It Was Just an Accident' with the Palme d'Or. 'It's been so invigorating, and this sort of cumulative tally of the work I'll carry with me.' More from Variety Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' Sold by the Match Factory to Slew of International Territories After Cannes Jury Prize Win Cannes Awards: Jafar Panahi Vindicated With Palme d'Or for 'It Was Just an Accident,' Marking Sixth Consecutive Cannes Win for Neon Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian Epic 'The Secret Agent' Wins Fipresci Award at Cannes: 'A Rich, Strange and Deeply Troubling Story' Strong continued: 'This has been a really wonderful experience, a really connected experience with these people — it's like 'Conclave' with champagne. It's really great.' Strong served under president Juliette Binoche along with Halle Berry, Payal Kapadia, Hong Sansoo, Alba Rohrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi and Carlos Reygadas. During the presser, the group explained their decision to give the top prize to 'It Was Just an Accident,' which follows a group of former prisoners in Iran who must decide whether or not to enact revenge on a man they think was their torturous guard. The film marked Panahi's first project since being imprisoned for several months in 2023 for criticizing the Iranian government. 'It's very human and political at the same time because he comes from a complicated country, politically speaking,' Binoche said. 'When we watched the film, it really stood out. The film springs from a feeling of resistance, survival, which is absolutely necessary today. So we thought it was important to give this film the paramount award.' She continued: 'Art will always win. What is human will always win. Our creative urge can transform the world.' Strong chimed in to say that the jury 'wanted to recognize films that we felt were transcendent intrinsically as pieces of work,' aligning with how Robert De Niro kicked off the festival during its opening ceremony by saying that 'fascists should fear art.' Speaking about 'It Was Just an Accident' and the other films awarded, Strong quoted the playwright Henrik Ibsen. 'Ibsen talked about, 'Deep inside, there's a poem in a poem. And when you hear that, when you grasp that, you will understand my song,'' he said. 'And I feel that this film and the other films have these poems within the poem that allow us to grasp something ineffable that have changed me.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
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Oliver Laxe's ‘Sirat' Sold by the Match Factory to Slew of International Territories After Cannes Jury Prize Win
The Match Factory has sold Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' to a slew of international territories following its jury prize win at Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night. The Match Factory has secured distribution for the film in the United Kingdom and Ireland (Altitude), LATAM (Cine Video y TV), BeNeLux (Cineart), Germany and Austria (Pandora Film), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Japan (Transformer), South Korea (Challan), Taiwan (Andrews Film), Australia and New Zealand (Madman Entertainment), Poland (New Horizons), Sweden (TriArt Film), Norway (Fidalgo), Finland (Cinema Mondo), Greece (Feelgood Entertainment), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Former Yugoslavia (MCF MegaCom), Romania (Transilvania Film), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Hungary (Cirko Film) and the Baltics (A-One Films). More from Variety Jeremy Strong Says Serving on Cannes Jury Was 'Like "Conclave" With Champagne' and Celebrates Palme d'Or Winner 'It Was Just an Accident': It 'Changed Me' Cannes Awards: Jafar Panahi Vindicated With Palme d'Or for 'It Was Just an Accident,' Marking Sixth Consecutive Cannes Win for Neon Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian Epic 'The Secret Agent' Wins Fipresci Award at Cannes: 'A Rich, Strange and Deeply Troubling Story' Negotiations for additional territories are underway. Earlier this week, Neon acquired rights to release the film in North America, while Mubi will handle Italy, Turkey and India. BTeam Pictures will release the film in Spain on June 6 and Pyramide is distributing in France. 'Sirat' follows a father (Sergi López) and his son as they 'arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco,' according to its official synopsis. 'They're searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.' 'Sirat' earned rave reviews out of Cannes, with Variety's Jessica Kiang calling it a 'brilliantly bizarre, cult-ready vision of human psychology tested to its limits' that defies 'all known laws of narrative and genre.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
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‘The Last One for the Road' Review: A Pleasant Italian Gem on Drinking Buddies, Aging and Wistful Flavors of Life
There is a kind of sadness that comes from living in a restless state of FOMO — or fear of missing out, as the acronym goes. The experiences you'd squander if you didn't show up to an occasion, the next song you wouldn't hear if you left a party too early and so on. In Italian filmmaker Francesco Sossai's loose-limbed and quietly enchanting sophomore feature 'The Last One for the Road,' lively 50-somethings Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano) and Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovilla) seem to have invented the perfect cure for FOMO by cheating it perpetually. To these penniless and amiably drunken men, every boozy beverage is always the last one — truly, for real this time, the last one — until the next one that usually comes right after. To them, the party is never quite over. Thankfully, Carlobianchi and Doriano never come across as leachy, intoxicated creeps (the way hard-drinking older men like them could be in real life) and there is a storybook quality to the duo's tipsy and bickering friendship: It's almost like their bromance is marriage, Italian style. Their everlasting merrymaking might seem warm and fuzzy at first glance, but in truth, there is a gloomy undercurrent to their existence, hiding just beneath the surface. The olden days seem to have slipped away from them rapidly. And the financial crisis of 2008 has probably been rough on them as a pair who burned through whatever cash they possessed. If only they could dig up the sizable chunk of money that their old friend buried somewhere in town before he left for Argentina. Maybe they will one day, right after that last drink. More from Variety Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' Sold by the Match Factory to Slew of International Territories After Cannes Jury Prize Win Jeremy Strong Says Serving on Cannes Jury Was 'Like "Conclave" With Champagne' and Celebrates Palme d'Or Winner 'It Was Just an Accident': It 'Changed Me' Cannes Awards: Jafar Panahi Vindicated With Palme d'Or for 'It Was Just an Accident,' Marking Sixth Consecutive Cannes Win for Neon Written by Sossai and Adriano Candiago (and loosely born out of some of their real-life experiences), 'The Last One for the Road' grasps its lead characters' aging-related anxieties acutely and insightfully, amplified during the years that you can be considered neither old nor young, like the '70s-born Carlobianchi and Doriano. All of a sudden, you realize that things you could swear happened about 10 years ago are vintage events of three decades past, and time slows down for no one. So who could blame the two for desperately trying to hold onto the present? While Sossai doesn't exactly dwell on this sadness, its subtle presence still infuses his unassuming feature with a melancholic quality, a wistful aura that brings to mind the fable-adjacent films of Alice Rohrwacher. The soulful and aching atmosphere of Rohrwacher's films is similarly at the backdrop of Carlobianchi and Doriano's escapades as they bar hop, exchange random stories (maybe real, maybe made-up), share life advice with everyone in their orbit, narrowly escape the police like getaway drivers across modest yet impressive chase scenes and order that final drink that will be anything but. On the background of their ceaseless journey is the glorious Venetian plains, landscapes and settlements that seem to be stuck in a transitionary space, like Carlobianchi and Doriano, somewhere between urban and pastoral. The smartest thing any old(er) person could do is pass on their earned wisdom to the young. While Carlobianchi and Doriano often have a hard time remembering the lessons they have learned and revelations they landed on (they drink incessantly, after all), they do exactly that by taking under their wing the young Giulio (Filippo Scotti), an architecture student who's adrift and intrigued. Though more agile and adventurous in its structure early on, 'The Last One for the Road' assumes a more conventional tone as the trio team up across a rowdy yet harmless road trip. The reflective themes the film has been playing with gradually lessen a touch too — it feels rather trite when the movie dedicates a significant amount of time to the older duo advising Giulio on women, eventually enabling a hook-up for him. The confident smile the until then timid Giulio wears on his face as a result is equally cliched. Beautifully shot on film stock, 'The Last One for the Road' still has plenty to offer elsewhere, especially in Sossai's portrayal of different architectural structures during the central trio's road trip. Mansions and modern buildings alike enrich the characters' impromptu and varied itinerary, and some inspired instances of inventive flashbacks that braid together the past and the present display filmmaking panache. Meanwhile, the effortlessly off-the-cuff rhythms of the script recall Richard Linklater's conversational films with characters organically bonding and speaking their mind. (A silly observation about who might have invented shrimp cocktail is especially funny with a nostalgic wink at the '90s.) When it all starts feeling a bit repetitive, a dash of suspense lifts up the movie with the trio teaming up for a petty con while sipping luscious daiquiris. You don't leave 'The Last One for the Road' with the feeling that you have seen something life-affirmingly original. But there is still a sense of disarming comfort in the film's down-to-earth demeanor, and Giulio's rewarding if predictable arc. In one of the movie's many casually paced scenes, Carlobianchi and Doriano have ice cream in a flavor they didn't intend to eat, anticipating a bitter taste, but getting something sweet instead. Right then, they could also be talking about the aromas of their own lives, but in reverse. And that's the spirit of 'The Last One for the Road' in a nutshell: eager to feed its audience something sweet when all else seems bitter. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
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Jafar Panahi's Cannes Palme d'Or is a ‘Powerful Blow to the Machinery of Repression in the Islamic Republic,' Says ‘Seed of the Sacred Fig' Director Mohammad Rasoulov (EXCLUSIVE)
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulov, who in May 2024 escaped from Iran to Europe after receiving a jail sentence from the country's authorities for making his drama 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig,' has issued a strong statement underlining the significance of fellow dissident auteur Jafar Panahi scooping the Cannes Palme d'Or on Saturday for his revenge drama 'It Was Just an Accident.' 'This victory is an unexpected and powerful blow to the machinery of repression in the Islamic Republic,' Rasoulov, who lives in Germany, said in a joint statement made on Sunday with producers Kaveh Farnam and Farzad Pak of the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA). More from Variety Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' Sold by the Match Factory to Slew of International Territories After Cannes Jury Prize Win Jeremy Strong Says Serving on Cannes Jury Was 'Like "Conclave" With Champagne' and Celebrates Palme d'Or Winner 'It Was Just an Accident': It 'Changed Me' Cannes Awards: Jafar Panahi Vindicated With Palme d'Or for 'It Was Just an Accident,' Marking Sixth Consecutive Cannes Win for Neon 'We congratulate Jafar Panahi; his family, who have stood by him with patience and resilience over the years; and the cast and crew of this film, who—through solidarity, trust, and courage—resisted threats and pressure from security forces during its difficult and clandestine production,' the statement added. 'We are heartened to know that the film will soon be screened widely across the world, and we have no doubt that 'It Was Just an Accident' will reach Iranian audiences before long—outside the official cinema networks, through the Internet,' it continued. Panahi, who was able to travel to Cannes to promote his surreptitiously shot film after being incarcerated twice for 'propaganda against the state' and banned from leaving Iran for more than 14 years, made an impassioned plea after being given the Palme. 'I believe this is the moment to call on all people, all Iranians, with all their differing opinions, wherever they are in the world — in Iran or abroad — to allow me to ask for one thing,' Panahi said, speaking through an interpreter. 'Let's set aside all problems, all differences. What's most important now is our country and the freedom of our country,' he added. 'Let us join forces. No-one should dare tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should do, or what we should not do' Panahi continued while sharing the stage with the cast of his film, including several unveiled actresses. 'It Was Just an Accident' is about a group of former political prisoners who kidnap a man whom they believe to be their former interrogator and torturer. The film, which the director in an interview with Variety said was inspired by his experiences in an Iranian prison, has now given Panahi, who is 64, the rare distinction of having won the top prize at all three major European film festivals, after taking Berlin's Golden Bear for 'Taxi' in 2015 and the Golden Lion at Venice for 'The Circle' in 2000. Panahi was not able to attend those festivals due to his ban which was lifted in April 2023. Asked by French news agency AFP if he was worried about returning to Iran after winning the top film prize at Cannes for 'It Was Just an Accident,' he replied: 'Not at all. Tomorrow we are leaving.' Meanwhile, as the dissident director heads back to Iran, Iranian media are largely ignoring Jafar Panahi's momentous Cannes Palme d'Or victory. Though Iran's state news agency IRNA trumpeted Panahi's award with a picture of him and the headline 'The world's largest film festival made history for Iranian cinema,' news that Panahi scooped the Palme did not appear on the websites of the nation's top English-language news outlets, Tehran Times and Iran Daily on Sunday. Instead, the latter published an item announcing that 'The Last of the Whale Shark,' a documentary by Iranian filmmaker Ramtin Balef, will be screening in competition at the upcoming Raindance Film Festival in London. Below is the full statement from Mohammad Rasoulov, Kaveh Farnam and Farzad Pak: The Palme d'Or awarded to A Simple Accident marks the beginning of a new wave of success for a cinema that has emerged from the heart of prohibition and censorship. This victory is an unexpected and powerful blow to the machinery of repression in the Islamic Republic. We congratulate Jafar Panahi; his family, who have stood by him with patience and resilience over the years; and the cast and crew of this film, who—through solidarity, trust, and courage—resisted threats and pressure from security forces during its difficult and clandestine production. We are heartened to know that the film will soon be screened widely across the world, and we have no doubt that A Simple Accident will reach Iranian audiences before long—outside the official cinema networks, through the internet. After years of perseverance, resistance, and creative struggle by generations of filmmakers, the decaying and collapsing system of censorship has been pushed back. Iran's censorship-defying cinema is now more alive and deeply rooted than ever. We believe in the future of this cinema, and we are confident that many Iranian filmmakers—especially the younger generation—are seeking new paths to create works that are free, humane, and liberating. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Militantropos' Review: Austere Anti-War Doc Employs Formal Control in an Impassioned Defense of Ukraine
Billowing gray smoke intermingles with moody cloud cover, while scores of grim-faced Ukrainian citizens watch the skies, arms folded. The visual opening salvo of 'Militantropos,' directed by Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi, could be the opening scene of a Hollywood disaster movie, albeit one of the more dour and serious-minded sorts. Moments later, we're at a train station and the visual reference switches: Huddled masses are being evacuated from Kviv to Vienna with their suitcases and children. We're setting up a heartfelt period drama, perhaps. And then, in close-up, a bulldozer turns over rubble, and a family photograph is glimpsed in the debris, a tattered symbol of what has been lost. The makers of 'Militantropos' seem well aware of how the visual touchstones of war have been borrowed or appropriated by cinema, and their film loops us back around again, confronting us with the source images. The neologism that gives the film its title, coined for and by this film, is defined on-screen as 'a persona adopted by humans when entering a state of war.' Such textual musings return periodically and are part of a toolbox of techniques aligning this doc with formally experimental work, despite ripped-from-the-headlines subject matter which might lead you to expect a more standard-issue approach. More from Variety 'The Last One for the Road' Review: A Pleasant Italian Gem on Drinking Buddies, Aging and Wistful Flavors of Life 'A Poet' Review: Simón Mesa Soto Crafts a Hilariously Absurdist Fable About Trying to Lead an Artistic Life Oliver Laxe's 'Sirat' Sold by the Match Factory to Slew of International Territories After Cannes Jury Prize Win Written with Maksym Nakonechnyi, the director of the bleak drama 'Butterfly Vision,' 'Militantropos' repeatedly considers the effect of war on children. The bubble any parent tries to build for their child is always temporary, as the illusion that the world is for the most part a benign or even magical place must inevitably be dismantled — but whether that dismantling is a gradually managed part of growing up or the quick and brutal consequence of events beyond the parent's control is brought home here with vivid urgency. A school where children have been forced to stay, with artwork on the walls — some of which are normal kids' drawings and others of which depict bombings — gives a grounded sense of place to the horrific childhoods endured by young Ukrainians. This film's anthropological interest in how people are shaped by an ongoing immersion in a state of war is simultaneously deeply personally felt and conveyed with a sense of analytical remove. Perhaps that's partly the consequence of having been directed by a group: There's a balance and care here that is likely the consequence of collaboration and conversation between three director-editors also known as the Tabor Collective. One imagines that some of those conversations must have involved the ethics of aestheticizing war. It's certainly a relevant talking point here. Do beautiful images of an ugly thing risk conferring some sort of palatability to that ugliness? It's a very specific version of the age-old debate about whether cinema tends to glamorize what it depicts. In the case of 'Militantropos,' it matters a lot who is doing the depicting: People who are living the reality of war over an extended period of time are arguably entitled to discover beauty where they find it. Hope springs in unlikely places, including in a grove of cherry blossoms that fill the screen toward the end of the documentary. Despite its aesthetic virtues, 'Militantropos' ultimately captures the dreariness of military engagement: the bloodless greys and muted khakis, the palette leached of all life and humanity. Crucially, when guns fire and bombs detonate, the documentary eschews the language of cinema: The filmmakers don't zoom in for a slow-motion shot of a man's face grimacing as he dies. You can't always quite tell what has happened, and there is no on-screen devices to help orient us in the mission. There may not even be a mission, as the feeling of senseless intermittent destruction remains palpable throughout 'Militantropos.' Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
