News

Check out the new brand new UK trailer for French actioner Black with a hilarious voiceover from sixty smokes-a-day man. We’ve also got a rather thorough synopsis for you to read, too.

Black comes from the same producer as last year’s superb A Prophet. This one looks a bit more action-orientated… check it out.

Synopsis:

The spirit of Blaxploitation classics such as ‘Super Fly’, ‘Shaft’ and ‘Truck Turner’ is given a modern day makeover in the action-thriller, Black, the directorial debut feature from Pierre Laffargue.

Produced by Marco Cherqui (A Prophet) and starring French hip-hop artist Mc Jean Gab’1 (the District 13 movies), Carole Karemera (Sometimes In April), Francois Levantal (A Very Long Engagement; D’Artagnan’s Daughter) and Anton Yakovlev (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), Black is “a slick, fun, French heist flick” (Eye Weekly) with a supernatural sting in the tail that sees its eponymous...

Year: 2009

Directors: Pierre Laffargue

Writers: Pierre Laffargue / Lucio Mad

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Ben Austwick

Rating: 8 out of 10

Heist movie meets magical realism in Pierre Laffargue's Black, an uneven but brave and exciting action film that starts off just about competent and ends up being quite wonderful. The way it grows into itself suggests an inexperienced director struggling to find his style, but one with enough imagination and confidence to make an excellent film with the jumble of bits he has to work with.

The film starts explosively with an armed robbery carried out by Black, a Parisian of Senegalese descent, and his gang on a security van in Paris. The robbery, a visceral and heart-popping flurry of shotgun blasts and explosions, is a disaster but Black manages to escape to Dakar where he hears from a relative of a bag full of diamonds hidden in an unsecured third-world bank.

Black Directed by Pierre Laffargue A strange, tonally schizophrenic, but undeniably fun concoction from France, Black combines elements of gangster and blaxploitation films, only to wind up in a different space entirely by throwing in supernatural elements with the subtlety of a machete to the face.. If that description appeals to you, you'll almost certainly enjoy it. Its shortcomings, stemming from failures of executiion rather than ambition or imagination, scream "first feature," but there's enough sheer entertainment value on display to let it slide. Mc Jean Gab'1 stars as the title character, a tough-talking but ultimately sympathetic thief who spends the film's thrilling opening minutes escaping a heist gone wrong. While in hiding, an obscure "relative" from Dakar, Black's hometown, lets him in on a huge and theoretically simple score, involving lifting a sack of diamonds from a bank vault. Of course, as it turns out, Black and his...

Not only will our very own London correspondent Ben Austwick be there to cover the fest but it's one of the best lineups ever!

How about the world premier for Pa giant insect comedy Infestation? Check.

Sneak preview of La Horde? Check.

UK premier of Cannes premier Hierro? Check.

The surprisingly good Giallo, the latest from Dario Argento? Check.

The world premier of The Descent part 2? Check!

Full schedule after the break. (Yes we copied Dread Central's post. Thanks UncleCreepy!)

Main Programme - Empire 1

# Thursday 27 August

18.30 Triangle (World Premiere)

The Boat That Shocked! Film4 FrightFest is delighted to open this year’s festival with the first ever showing of British director Christopher Smith’s latest spellbinding horror fantasy. When Jess (Melissa George) hits a seagull driving to her local harbour little does she know it signals a harrowing omen for her yachting trip with friends. From epic ocean vistas to poignantly shocking finale,...

The UK's most amazing horror film festival Film 4 FrightFest has released what could very well be one of the best horror line-ups we've seen ever for its latest show taking place August 27th - August 31st, brimming with films we've been salivating over Stateside!

If you need any more reasons to fly across the pond check out the schedule below!

Main Programme - Empire 1

Thursday 27 August 18.30 Triangle (World Premiere)

The Boat That Shocked! Film4 FrightFest is delighted to open this year’s festival with the first ever showing of British director Christopher Smith’s latest spellbinding horror fantasy. When Jess (Melissa George) hits a seagull driving to her local harbour little does she know it signals a harrowing omen for her yachting trip with friends. From epic ocean vistas to poignantly shocking finale, Triangle is Smith’s best, polished and most mature work.

95 minutes Director: Christopher Smith UK/Australia 2009

Melissa George...

What's the time? It's time to get ill! That's right, the 6 films playing at the SXSW midnight lineup courtesy of Fantastic Fest have been announced, and we've reported on quite a few of these, especially The Horseman which we loved. Check em out:

Ong Bak 2 (Thailand)

Director: Tony Jaa. Writer: Panna Rittikrai

Martial-arts superstar Tony Jaa is back in an epic prequel to the 2003 action smash Ong Bak. Cast: Tony Jaa, Sorapong Chatree, Sarunyu Wongkrachang, Nirut Sirichanya, Santisuk Promsiri, Primorata Dejudom (International Film Festival Premiere)

Black (France)

Director: Pierre Laffargue. Writer: Pierre Laffargue, Lucio Mad and Gábor Rassov

A nouveau-blacksploitation adventure awash in black magic, African Mysticism, mutant arms dealers, gargantuan machete-wielding mercenary armies and a truckload of knuckle-sandwiches. Cast: Mc Jean Gab'1, Carole Karemera, François Levantal, Anton Yakovlev (World Premiere)

The Haunting in Connecticut (U.S.)

Director: Peter Cornwell. Writer: Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe

In the tradition...

Austin, Texas – February 17, 2008 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced the official titles for their new program “SXSW Presents Fantastic Fest at Midnight,” kicking off with the International Film Festival Premiere of Ong Bak 2, the most anticipated new action film of the year. Six films from six countries comprise the lineup, featuring four international premieres, one North American premiere and one U.S. Premiere. From horror to action, to comedy and suspense, these six films collectively represent the spectrum of genre films featured in Austin’s annual Fantastic Fest. All films will play at midnight at the SXSW Film Festival at the Alamo South Lamar, in addition to the traditional SXSW Midnighters section, which will take place at the Alamo Ritz. The program will feature:

Ong Bak 2 (Thailand)

Director: Tony Jaa. Writer: Panna Rittikrai

Martial-arts superstar Tony Jaa is back in an epic prequel to the 2003 action smash Ong Bak.

As reported by Variety, Montreal-based distribution company Evokative Films has acquired Canadian rights to Pierre Laffargue’s French action film Black. The film stars French rapper Mc Jean Gab’1, who Twitch readers might recognize from his small role in Pierre Morel’s Banliueue 13 (District 13), and Carole Karemera. Jean Gab’1 plays the titular Senegalese bank-robber (born and raised in France) who plans on going straight after a botched heist. His cousin interrupts his brief retirement with a call from Dakar, where a briefcase full of diamonds presents a new opportunity.

One might ask what differentiates this film from the pack? The trailer, which is currently being re-cut for the Canadian market, gives a hint. The French and Senegalese locales, the witchcraft, the Afro-beat music, the European heavies and the overall vibe invokes the black action films of the 70s but with a modern international vibe. Evokative Films is the first...

BERLIN -- Sometimes in April takes on the Rwandan genocide of 1994 with a story that incorporates both the big picture and a drama about a specific family. Writer-director Raoul Peck, who told the story of the rise to power and assassination of a Congolese leader in Lumumba, has the disadvantage of coming late to the subject. Along with several books about the horrifying events that left upward of 1 million people dead, several documentaries and the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda already have brought Rwanda to the screen. Undoubtedly, there are many, many stories arising from these atrocities yet to be told. But Peck's generic approach, in which one fictional tale tries to encompass the entire tragedy, falls considerably short of the mark.

In the United States, the film will air on HBO, where many people who successfully have avoided any book or movie will get exposed to the story perhaps for the first time, so this might do much good. In territories where April will get released theatrically, the film might have less impact.

The story is split between two Aprils, in 2004 and 1994, and tells the experiences of Augustin Muganza (Idris Elba). Peck contrives the makeup of his family in such a way that he can include as many horror stories as possible. Thus, Augustin is a Hutu army officer, but his wife (Carole Karemera) is Tutsi. His brother Honore (Oris Erhuero) works at a radio station known as "hate radio" that broadcasts a call to arms for Hutus to slaughter Tutsis during the three-month carnage. And Augustin's girlfriend in 2004, Martine (Pamela Nomvete), teaches at a Catholic girls school in 1994, which one of his daughters attends.

In April 2004, during the national Day of Remembrance, Augustin receives a letter from Honore, asking Augustin to visit him in prison in Tanzania, where he is about to plead guilty at the International Criminal Tribunal. Martine urges him to go. Augustin reluctantly does so, and the movie moves back and forth between the two Aprils to fill us in on what happened to the family -- and the nation.

A third sequence takes place behind closed doors in Washington, where U.S. officials debate and temporize but do nothing to stop the massacre. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Prudence Bushnell (Debra Winger) argues for action but gets nowhere. The impression left by these scenes -- that blame for nonintervention lies solely with the U.S. government and not other U.N. member states, including European powers with genuine stakes in the region -- is simplistic and misleading.

The film captures the tensions and fears as chaos rages in the streets and includes more than enough sequences of mass murder to get across the point that madness gripped the entire nation. However, none of its characters is sufficiently developed so that an audience really can identify with him, which is what makes Hotel Rwanda so much more powerful. Dialogue often deteriorates into speeches, and characters habitually make geopolitical points.

This Berlinale has its share of movies about ethnic carnage, such as Amu, about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, and Massacre, about the Christian militia's murder of Palestinian civilians in refugee camps in 1982. Such films need to be made and seen. But they usually hit home strongest when filmmakers are willing to put as much effort into drama and character as into political posturing.

SOMETIMES IN APRIL

HBO Films

Credits: Director-screenwriter: Raoul Peck; Producer: Daniel Delume; Executive producers: Raoul Peck, Joel Stillerman; Director of photography: Eric Guichard; Production designer: Benoit Barouh; Music: Bruno Coulais; Costume designer: Paule Mangenot; Editor: Jacques Comets. Cast: Augustin: Idris Elba; Prudence Bushnell: Debra Winger; Jeanne: Carole Karemera; Martine: Pamela Nomvete; Honore: Oris Erhuero; Xavier: Fraser James; Lionel: Noah Emmerich.

No MPAA rating, running time 140 minutes.