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The holidays are upon us, so whether you’re looking for film-related gifts or simply want to get for yourself some of the finest this year had to offer, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and other home-video lines, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

4K & Blu-ray Box Sets

There’s no better gift than an epic film collection, and 2024 was an embarrassment of riches thanks to a number of box sets. The king of them all, especially if you’re looking for a gift for a burgeoning cinephile, is Criterion’s massive CC40, collecting 40 landmark films form their 40-year history. It’s not the only stellar set from the company, of course, as I adored the essential Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978, Éric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène,...

It’s one of the great fallacies that comedy doesn’t need to look good. (Blame years of badly lit Apatow productions and nearly every modern studio release being 4K-shot eye torture.) A strong rebuke might be Criterion releasing Albert Brooks’ Real Life and Mother on 4K in August, a pairing that rings especially strong when placed side-by-side with the month’s other major release, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. Few would think to give these three titles the same format, but here we are.

Meanwhile, Martha Coolidge’s recently restored Not a Pretty Picture arrives on Blu-ray alongside two by Kira Muratova: Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell, a pair of lesser-seen works given a handsome package.

Find artwork below and more details at Criterion:

The post The Criterion Collection’s August Lineup Includes Brooks and Bertolucci on 4K first appeared on The Film Stage.

To celebrate the release of Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell coming to Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital on September 18th we have 2 sets of both Blu-Rays to give away!

Studiocanal are pleased to announce their Vintage World Classics release of two seminal works by female director Kira Muratova, one of the leading figures in Ukranian and Russian cinema. Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell have been beautifully restored in 4k and, following their premiere in Bologna at the Cinema Ritrovata Festival, will be available for the first time in the UK on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 18 September.

Brief Encounters (1967) was the debut feature from Kira Muratova, and shows the beginnings of her impressionistic style, blending observational realism with new wave experimentation. Through an intricate play of flashbacks and shifting perspectives, Brief Encounters reveals the intricate love triangle, connecting a hard-nosed city planner (played by Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist...

These two striking, improvisatory remasters by Kira Muratova resemble early Polanski, and establish the late director as a fiercely intelligent auteur

Two complex, elusive and demanding films by the late Moldovan-born, Ukrainian-based director Kira Muratova have now been digitally remastered and rereleased: Brief Encounters (1967) (★★★★★) and The Long Farewell (1971) (★★★★★). The latter was not initially released until much later, owing at least partly to the continuous suspicion Muratova’s distinctive, prose-poetic film language faced from the Soviet authorities.

The question of the director’s neglect in film history has been much discussed, and maybe it is also marginally unfortunate that the titles of these films are easily confused with two very well-known English-language movies. Both contain a single striking narrative hook, what might in Hollywood terms almost be called a “high concept”. In Brief Encounters, an elegant single woman employed in the government’s housing department takes in a live-in housekeeper, unaware...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

Michael Roemer’s great The Plot Against Harry and the Tarantino-presented Winter Kills both screen on 35mm; Contempt continues

Roxy Cinema

Madonna fans can flock to Dick Tracy and Evita on 35mm, while a print of Perdita Durango also plays.

Film at Lincoln Center

Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell and Brief Encounters are both screening in new restorations.

Museum of Modern Art

The earliest color films screen in a new series.

Anthology Film Archives

Documentaries by the great Kazuo Hara are subject of a new retrospective.

Museum of the Moving Image

Nope, Starman, Airport, and 2001 play on 70mm in a new series; Baby Boy and Idlewild have screenings.

IFC Center

The Bling Ring, Event Horizon, and Fist of Fury have late showings, while Oldboy and The Others play in new restorations; The Age of Innocence and...

Made in Russian at Odesa Film Studio in the aftermath of de-Stalinization, Kira Muratova’s Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell nonetheless faced censorship for ignoring the precepts of socialist realism. They make for fruitful viewing as a diptych, sharing in certain themes, motifs, and, above all, a rulebook-shredding attitude to cinematic form. Neither overtly criticize Soviet life, yet they smuggle in a discontent that’s detectable less by what they condemn than by what they frame instead: the domestic, the psychological, the interpersonal. What’s surprising isn’t that they got banned, but that Muratova managed to get them made at all. Now especially, watching these two films feels like something of a miracle.

Brief Encounters, from 1967, tells the story of Nadya (Nina Ruslanova), a young woman who leaves her village to work as a housekeeper for Valya (Muratova), committee member to a provincial Odesa district, and her husband,...

Filmmakers and executives, creatives of music, theater and art remembered Tom Luddy as friend and mentor, tastemaker and cultural force who deployed an astonishingly vast network to nurture talent and bring people and projects together over decades.

The co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival passed away in February.

“I am thinking of getting a tattoo of you on my arm,” said Irish director Mark Cousins at tribute event at the Paris Theatre over the weekend. “Here is Hitchcock on my arm, and here is and Kira Muratova. Maybe you would fit between the two?” He added, “For the rest of my life, I will see partly through your eyes. I miss you and I love you.”

“Tom Luddy was a constant presence. The sun around which so many of us have revolved,” said Ken Burns. The two met when Burns screened Huey Long at Telluride in 1985. “For the next 35-plus years,...

Ukraine is to host its first ever queer film festival, it was announced at Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam.

Sunny Bunny – named after Kyiv-based Molodist Film Fest’s non-competition section, established in 2001 – is eyeing a summer slot.

“Maybe it’s a bit stereotypical to do it in June, as it’s Pride Month, but it will give us more time to prepare,” programmer Bohdan Zhuk revealed to Variety on Tuesday. Pointing out that the standalone event might still continue to be a part of Molodist in some form.

“The war is unpredictable, so you just have to adapt and be flexible. When we did Molodist in December, there were blackouts, so we needed generators. We also needed to plan where people would hide in case of raids, plan out shelters in cinemas or nearby metro stations,” he added.

“The plan is to do it separately, but also to keep that connection.

The world premieres of Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” and Sebastian Lelio’s “The Wonder” will take place at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, which announced its lineup on Thursday, one day before the festival begins.

Other notable films in the Telluride lineup include Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Bardo,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Todd Field’s “TÁR” and James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” which are making their North American debuts after premiering at European festivals.

Among the documentaries heading to Telluride, premieres are Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy,” Anton Corbijn’s “Squaring the Circle,” Ryan White’s “Good Night Oppy,” Mary McCartney’s “If These Walls Could Sing” and Eva Webber’s “Merkel.”

Also Read:

TIFF 2022 Lineup: Films From Tyler Perry, Peter Farrelly, Sam Mendes and Catherine Hardwicke to Premiere

Documentary director and film historian Mark Cousins will have two films at the festival,...

Following Main Slate, Spotlight, and Currents, the 60th New York Film Festival have now unveiled its final film-focused section with Revivals. Featuring brand-new restorations of works by Claire Denis, Pedro Costa, Edward Yang, Jean Eustache, Manoel de Oliveira, Cauleen Smith, Kira Muratova, and more, it’s quite a stellar lineup of lesser-known works by established auteurs as well as long-underseen films by directors deserving of more acclaim.

“The Revivals section continues to look beyond acknowledged and revered classics, and to challenge the conventions of the canon,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center. “This year’s lineup proves once again that even relatively recent decades are full of potential cinematic discoveries, by showcasing significant works from artists of diverse backgrounds and origins in striking new restorations.”

See the lineup below ahead of the festival, taking place September 30-October 16.

Beirut the Encounter

Borhane Alaouié, 1981, Lebanon, 97m

Arabic with English subtitles

U.

American auteur Kelly Reichardt, an icon of the international film community thanks to her signature “slow cinema” style, will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

Since making her acclaimed 1994 debut “River of Grass,” Reichardt has followed her own singular orbit as a true outlier of indie cinema over the course of nearly quarter of a century and a dozen works including “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Night Moves,” and “First Cow” — which opened Locarno in 2020 — that have cemented her reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in cinema today.

Reichardt’s new pic “Showing Up” is tipped to premiere in Cannes in May.

The Swiss fest dedicated to indie and cutting-edge cinema in a statement described Reichardt’s films, which she also edits, as being “characterized by intense research on realism and hallmarked by proudly independent creative and production processes.

“As a showcase of the free world, the Berlinale has always put at its centre the notion of freedom and the will to bridge East and West.”

The Berlinale has issued a statement of solidarity in light of the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine.

The statement said, “We – festival workers, artists, filmmakers … – think fondly of our friends in Ukraine and we are by their side in a call for peace.

”As a showcase of the free world, the Berlinale has always put at its centre the notion of freedom and the will to bridge East and West.”

The full statement appears below:

We – festival workers,...

Update, 9:30Am: The Berlin International Film Festival has become the latest European organization to condemn Russia’s aggression into Ukraine and to voice support for local filmmakers.

“We – festival workers, artists, filmmakers … – think fondly of our friends in Ukraine and we are by their side in a call for peace,” the fest said in a statement. “The world is on a verge of a huge crisis”.

You can read the statement in full at the end of this post.

Previously, 3:48Am: The European Film Academy (Efa) has contacted its members in Ukraine pledging support amidst today’s assault on the country by Russian forces.

“We are looking at ways that we can provide practical support to members, through our association with organizations which are close on the ground in terms of borders,” Efa chairman Mike Downey told Deadline. “As the situation unfolds, we are trying to find out what help might be necessary,...

The Berlin Film Festival has called for peace over the situation in Ukraine, which is currently in a state of military conflict after Russian forces struck on Thursday morning.

“We — festival workers, artists, filmmakers — think fondly of our friends in Ukraine and we are by their side in a call for peace,” the festival said in a statement issued on Thursday.

“One week ago, the Berlin International Film Festival was celebrating a complicated yet successful edition. Filmmakers, artists and journalists from all over the world gathered in Berlin to enjoy a collective and joyful experience. The feeling of being together again, with no distinctions of nationality, religion, or culture, transported us in a way that film festivals can accomplish,” the statement added.

“While these memories remain fresh, other images have broken into our lives, bringing a darker perspective. The world is on a verge of a huge crisis. As a showcase of the free world,...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. The series Independent Women: The Pioneering Cinema of Márta Mészáros starts on Mubi on March 22, 2021 in many countries.In an interview with Philip Roth, Czech writer Milan Kundera said about the concept of forgetting: “This is the great private problem of man: death as the loss of self. But what is this self? It is the sum of everything we remember. Thus, what terrifies us about death is not the loss of the past. Forgetting is a form of death ever present within life…. But forgetting is also the great problem of politics. When a big power wants to deprive a small country of its national consciousness, it uses the method of organized forgetting.”The films of Márta Mészáros epitomize these sentiments. Internationally renowned for her four Diary films—Diary for...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: The Hour of the Furnace by Fernando Solanas.Argentinian filmmaker Fernando Solanas, best known for his 1968 documentary The Hour of the Furnace and his manifesto "Toward a Third Cinema", has died. Celine Sciamma has started filming her follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film, entitled Petite Maman, will be filmed by regular collaborator Claire Mathon and will focus on the childhood of two eight-year old kids. Although her adaptation of Denis Johnson's Stars at Noon has been delayed, Claire Denis will be reteaming with Juliette Binoche and Bastards star Vincent Lindon for a still-untitled film. Sean Baker has also confirmed that his "secret movie" called Red Rocket, starring Simon Rex (of the Scary Movie franchise), will complete shooting this month. Recommended VIEWINGStarting on November 16, Jr and Alice Rohrwacher's...

Above: New OrderNow we know: It's possible to have a film festival almost the usual way even during these Covid-laden months. Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato and Venice's Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica (which this year ended and opened seamlessly one after the other) did demonstrate this splendidly, offering therewith a pattern for others to emulate.So what did Bologna and Venice do? Il Cinema Ritrovato used several more cinemas, some of them longish walks away from the established center on and near Via delle Lame, which saw to a lot of people missing one another—those who focused on silent films were all day at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and could spend the whole week without ever meeting somebody who'd spend her or his days at the Cinema Jolly. Patrons of the latter were watching the wonderfully composed if very much by-the-book selection on Early Women Directors in the Soviet...

Kira Muratova's Long Farewells (1971) is showing November 5 - December 4, 2020 on Mubi in the United States and Canada.Above: Long FarewellsThe opening scene of Kira Muratova’s first film Brief Encounters (1967) shows Valentina, a local council member in Odessa, writing a speech about agriculture. She reads aloud from her draft, “Comrades,” she begins, “dear Comrades…” Valentina is a model Soviet woman. She rises from the table, enters another room and gets her comrade Stepanovich on the phone. She explains to him that she cannot lead the conference, “Why should I? It’s not my area of expertise.” Stepanovich replies, “Sergey is on vacation, Marchenko is sick.” Valentina is already busy dealing with the town’s economy and will soon be leading another conference on the regional water supply. She fires back, “Why don't you lead the conference yourself?” Stepanovich reminds her that he will only report to her once she...

Starting on Sept. 1, Turner Classic Movies will air 14-part documentary “Women Make Film,” an exhaustive look at female filmmakers worldwide and their work throughout cinematic history.

The series dissects elements of filmmaking — from tracking shots to crafting narrative arcs — through the work of everyone from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow to Tunisian helmer Moufida Tlatli, the first Arab woman to direct a full-length feature.

“It’s not only about filmmakers in North America,” said TCM general manager Pola Changnon. “It’s about countries where filmmaking reputations aren’t that well-known, especially here. That’s why I love the title of this — ‘Women Make Film.’ It’s a statement of fact, and even though they’re not always well-represented in the film canon, women have been doing this for decades.”

Written and directed by Mark Cousins, the docuseries features an impressive list of narrators: Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda, Adjoa Andoh, Sharmila Tagore,...

Dau, the 700-hour behemoth of a cinema project, directed by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel and Ilya Permyakov, caused quite a stir when two of its films premiered this year at Berlinale. The six-hour Dau. Degeneration and the four-hour Dau. Natasha both featured an extensive cast of mostly non-professional yet intensely watchable, often heartbreakingly convincing actors. Most of the project had been shot on the 42,000-square-feet set in Ukraine, which created an isolated, immersive atmosphere. With panache, some debauchery and plenty chugged vodka, the films inducted viewers into the universe of an isolated, top-secret Soviet research institute, where science and reason succumb to ruthless might and political machinations.In contrast to the sprawling Degeneration, and in line with the more intimate Natasha, the latest feature of the project to be released, Dau. Nora Mother, is modest. At just under one hour and thirty minutes, it feels slight, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

Absurdist film director who emerged from the Soviet shadows in the era of perestroika

At the Berlin film festival in February 1990, the winner of the Silver Bear – the special jury prize – was The Asthenic Syndrome, an extraordinarily original film from the Soviet Union, directed by Kira Muratova, who has died aged 83. The period of perestroika (reconstruction) from 1985 onwards allowed Muratova to emerge from the shadows and make her absurdist masterpiece unencumbered by the draconian strictures of socialist realism. Nevertheless, because of “obscenity” – there was both male and female full-frontal nudity – it was the only film to be banned in the Soviet Union during perestroika, though that ban was lifted soon after the Berlin award.

Right from the start of Muratova’s career as a director in 1961, she was an irritant to the regime. Her first solo directed feature, Brief Encounters (1967), was shelved until the advent of perestroika. A ménage à trois,...

Kira Muratova, one of the Russian-speaking world's most influential filmmakers, has died. She was 83.

Muratova died in Odessa, Ukraine, where she had lived and worked for many years, her husband, Yevgeny Golubenko, told the Ukrainian news portal Buro. Friends on social media said she had been ill for some time.

A director and screenwriter, Muratova earned plaudits at home and abroad for her fearless work, which included critically acclaimed features such as The Asthenic Syndrome, a dark satire of Soviet society revolving around a student with acute melancholia. It received a special jury prize at the 1990 Berlin Film ...

Kira Muratova, one of the Russian-speaking world's most influential filmmakers, has died. She was 83.

Muratova died in Odessa, Ukraine, where she had lived and worked for many years, her husband, Yevgeny Golubenko, told the Ukrainian news portal Buro. Friends on social media said she had been ill for some time.

A director and screenwriter, Muratova earned plaudits at home and abroad for her fearless work, which included critically acclaimed features such as The Asthenic Syndrome, a dark satire of Soviet society revolving around a student with acute melancholia. It received a special jury prize at the 1990 Berlin Film ...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSOver the weekend we lost two greats: Filmmaker George A. Romero, best known for inventing the modern version of all things zombie, and actor Martin Landau. Patton Oswalt has pointed out that a 19-year-old Romero worked as a pageboy on North by Northwest, Landau's second movie.The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has again added more names to its membership, and this latest batch includes even more unexpected additions from the world of international art cinema, including directors Pedro Costa, Lav Diaz, Ann Hui, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Kira Muratova, Johnnie To and Athina Rachel Tsangari.Did you see that the lineup of the Locarno Film Festival has been announced? With a huge retrospective devoted to Cat People director Jacques Tourneur and a competition including new films by Wang Bing, F.J. Ossang, Ben Russell,...

MotherThe International Short Film Festival Rotterdam is winding down and the atmosphere is changing, especially as the business-heavy, concurrent CineMart market has ended, and sales agents and young filmmakers and producers are being swapped out at the festival gathering points and at screenings in exchange for the local Dutch moviegoing population. These new audiences for the festival's last few days are the lucky ones, for three wonderful, delicate films have emerged as real discoveries and powerful highlights of the 11-day experience.The best new work of fiction I saw here at the festival is a cornerstone of what makes an event like Rotterdam special: A dedication to films of soul-warm fragility whose fineness is so rare that such moves are unfairly assumed to be unfit for wider exposure. The Slovenian film Mother, by Vlado Škafar, is launched here and deserves to travel far afield: its tenderness, flushed with inquisitive compassion,...

Quite the episode of the The Cinephiliacs this week! Peter Labuza talks with Jonathan Rosenbaum about Jacques Rivette's Out 1 and more. Also in today's roundup: Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell on Otto Rippert’s 1916 serial Homunculus, Dan Callahan on Mitchell Leisen, Nathalie Morris on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going! at 70, an excerpt from a new book on Richard Pryor, an interview with Giorgio Moroder—and remembering Saeed Jaffrey. » - David Hudson...

Quite the episode of the The Cinephiliacs this week! Peter Labuza talks with Jonathan Rosenbaum about Jacques Rivette's Out 1 and more. Also in today's roundup: Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell on Otto Rippert’s 1916 serial Homunculus, Dan Callahan on Mitchell Leisen, Nathalie Morris on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going! at 70, an excerpt from a new book on Richard Pryor, an interview with Giorgio Moroder—and remembering Saeed Jaffrey. » - David Hudson...

Syndromes and a Century: German Jr.’s Existentialist State of Things

Aleksey German Jr., son of famed Russian auteur Aleksey German, comes into his own prominence with his third feature Under Electric Clouds, which took home a cinematography award following its premiere at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival. Much like his father’s cinema, German announces similar interests in existentialist societal woes impervious to logical narrative format, and exchanges deliberations of the past (his previous title, Paper Soldier takes place in 1961) for the looming future of 2017 (a date that may dawn before the title premieres in certain international markets). With production delayed so German could put the finishing touches on his father’s posthumous masterpiece, Hard to Be a God, this indictment on the decaying cultural state of Russia tuned exactly one hundred years after the Russian Revolution is a critique as obscurely damning as it elusively oblique in tone. Some...

This letter is part of "Behind the Celluloid Curtain," a series of correspondences between Scout Tafoya and Veronika Ferdman on the topic of Soviet cinema, with each series organized around a theme. This particular series focuses on love in a time of discontent.Dear Scout,I have wanted to discuss Soviet cinema with someone for so very, very long. Despite being born in the former Soviet Union (and spending the greater part of my childhood in the United States) it took me a long time to turn my eyes to Soviet films. You asked what I was told about that country (or, really, idea) while growing up, but perhaps out of some subconscious desire to assimilate as quickly as possible I spent much of my childhood and adolescence skirting around the issue of my heritage—I didn't read the literature, watch the films, or want anything to do with that part of myself.

We begin our roundup of goings on in New York, where Vittorio De Sica: Attore, Regista, Seduttore opens today at Film Forum and runs through October 8. Wim Wenders: Portraits Along the Road on at the IFC Center through September 24, and Allison Anders has an hour-long conversation with him at the Talkhouse Film. Kim Morgan recommends Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie, screening Sunday in Los Angeles. An exhibition of Agnès Varda's photographs opens in Chicago on Friday. Dennis Lim will be talking with Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Saturday in Toronto. "Cinema of the Philippines: Lav Diaz & Lino Brocka" opens today in Brussels. And a Kira Muratova retrospective is heading to São Paulo. » - David Hudson...

We begin our roundup of goings on in New York, where Vittorio De Sica: Attore, Regista, Seduttore opens today at Film Forum and runs through October 8. Wim Wenders: Portraits Along the Road on at the IFC Center through September 24, and Allison Anders has an hour-long conversation with him at the Talkhouse Film. Kim Morgan recommends Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie, screening Sunday in Los Angeles. An exhibition of Agnès Varda's photographs opens in Chicago on Friday. Dennis Lim will be talking with Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Saturday in Toronto. "Cinema of the Philippines: Lav Diaz & Lino Brocka" opens today in Brussels. And a Kira Muratova retrospective is heading to São Paulo. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup: Dan Callahan on Marcel L’Herbier's L’Argent, Jim Knipfel on Boris Ingster's Stranger on the 3rd Floor, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Omar Ahmed on Robin Wood's book about Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, a discussion about Straight Outta Compton, Dennis Drabelle on Douglas Keesey's new book about Brian De Palma, Robert C. Cumbow on David Lynch's Wild at Heart, a celebration of Maureen O’Hara at 95, David Cairns on Richard Lester, interviews with John Waters, Hubert Sauper and Nadav Lapid—and more. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup: Dan Callahan on Marcel L’Herbier's L’Argent, Jim Knipfel on Boris Ingster's Stranger on the 3rd Floor, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Omar Ahmed on Robin Wood's book about Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, a discussion about Straight Outta Compton, Dennis Drabelle on Douglas Keesey's new book about Brian De Palma, Robert C. Cumbow on David Lynch's Wild at Heart, a celebration of Maureen O’Hara at 95, David Cairns on Richard Lester, interviews with John Waters, Hubert Sauper and Nadav Lapid—and more. » - David Hudson...

Central and Eastern Europe's flagship festival, running from July 3 to 11 this summer, is one for moviegoers hungry for discoveries, curiosities and breakouts. This year, Kviff asked six prominent directors to personally present a film favorite that has defined their own style as filmmakers. Read More: Karlovy Vary Film Fest Lineup Lures Adventurous Cinephiles, Young Directors Cine-essayist Mark Cousins, who will bring a new feature doc to the fest this year, presents the Iranian-French film "A Moment of Innocence" (Nun va Goldoon, 1996) by one of the leading directors of the Iranian new wave, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Kim Ki-duk will present the lovely "Poetry" (Shi), directed by his colleague and countryman Lee Chang-dong in 2010. Sergei Loznitsa will show director Kira Muratova’s magnum opus, "The Asthenic Syndrome" (Astenicheskiy sindrom, 1989). Luis Miñarro chose the Orson Welles’ legendary 1958 film noir "Touch of Evil,"...

Six selected directors include Michaël R. Roskam [pictured], Kim Ki-duk and Sion Sono.

Six international directors who share a history with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 3-11) are to present one of their favourite films at the 50th edition of the festival in the Czech spa town.

The special section, titled Six Close Encounters, will include contributions from directors Mark Cousins, Kim Ki-duk, Sergei Loznitsa, Luis Miñarro, Michael R. Roskam and Sion Sono.

Each will select and personally present a favourite film that played a fundamental role in defining their own styles on filmmaking.

“It is extremely important to us that we maintain long-term relationships with filmmakers whose work we follow continuously, often from the beginning of their careers, which in many cases were launched at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,” says Kviff artistic director Karel Och.

Mark Cousins: A Moment of Innocence (Nun va Goldoon, 1996), Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Kim Ki-duk:...

Jean-Luc Godard figures rather prominently in the new issues of Senses of Cinema and Necsus, the European Journal of Media Studies. Senses also features reviews of several films by Mikio Naruse, two by Kira Muratova, three by Karel Zeman, and interviews with Albert Maysles, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Corneliu Porumboiu, Denis Côté, Hubert Sauper, Raphaël Bassan, Viviane Vagh and Jayne Amara Ross. Plus: Moritz Pfeifer on Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida and Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan, Philip Cartelli on Bruno Dumont's P’tit Quinquin and the latest round of festival reports. » - David Hudson...

Jean-Luc Godard figures rather prominently in the new issues of Senses of Cinema and Necsus, the European Journal of Media Studies. Senses also features reviews of several films by Mikio Naruse, two by Kira Muratova, three by Karel Zeman, and interviews with Albert Maysles, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Corneliu Porumboiu, Denis Côté, Hubert Sauper, Raphaël Bassan, Viviane Vagh and Jayne Amara Ross. Plus: Moritz Pfeifer on Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida and Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan, Philip Cartelli on Bruno Dumont's P’tit Quinquin and the latest round of festival reports. » - David Hudson...

Dear Adam,

What a pleasure to be at another film festival with you. Despite the frenzy of activity, the audiences and the society of such events, I tend to find them lonely places, so much time in the dark with your own thoughts, so many single-minded scrambles from venue to venue, most conversations before the late hours being mere passing salutations or monosyllabic recommendations. The only other time I’ve been able to strike up a correspondence like this is with the inimitable Fernando F. Croce during Toronto’s film festival, and I count myself lucky to be able to resume this missive format with you. It’ll be good to have a place to chat, both out there, in Berlin, and here.

This year, for the first in many, I have optimistically opted to visit the Berlin International Film Festival rather than attend the International Film Festival Rotterdam, mainly...

Today's roundup of news and views opens with entries on new books about Kira Muratova, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert De Niro and Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Plus: a computer program Chris Marker wrote in the 80s; a rave for the new film by Ryuichi Hiroki; an appreciation of Julianne Moore; Jafar Panahi's statement on why he makes films despite Iran's ban; good news and bad news for Martin Scorsese; J. Hoberman on Aleksei German; Ruben Östlund and Peter Greenaway on their next projects; a Maggie Smith season in London—and more. » - David Hudson...

Today's roundup of news and views opens with entries on new books about Kira Muratova, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert De Niro and Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Plus: a computer program Chris Marker wrote in the 80s; a rave for the new film by Ryuichi Hiroki; an appreciation of Julianne Moore; Jafar Panahi's statement on why he makes films despite Iran's ban; good news and bad news for Martin Scorsese; J. Hoberman on Aleksei German; Ruben Östlund and Peter Greenaway on their next projects; a Maggie Smith season in London—and more. » - David Hudson...

Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation won the Grand Prix at this year’s Odessa International Film Festival (Oiff), overshadowed in its final days by the shooting down of a Malaysian Airways plane.

Lavie’s debut feature, handled internationally by The Match Factory, was voted by the festival-goers to receive the Golden Duke statuette and the $12,000 cash prize.

Director Lavie and actress Shani Klein were accompanied on stage by the Israel Film Fund Katriel Schory to accept the Grand Prix from the hands of the Oiff president Viktoriya Tigipko.

News of the Malaysian Airways plane tragedy broke early on Thursday evening during a reception in honour of Turkish films showing at the festival.

A minute’s silence was held in memory of the crash victims ahead of Gogol Wives’ documentary Pussy vs Putin that evening.

On Friday, another minute of silence was held at the beginning of the awards ceremony in memory of the aeroplane’s passengers as well...

Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation won the Grand Prix at this year’s Odessa International Film Festival (Oiff), overshadowed in its final days by the shooting down of a Malaysian Airways plane.

Lavie’s debut feature, handled internationally by The Match Factory, was voted by the festival-goers to receive the Golden Duke statuette and the $12,000 cash prize.

Director Lavie and actress Shani Klein were accompanied on stage by the Israel Film Fund Katriel Schory to accept the Grand Prix from the hands of the Oiff president Viktoriya Tigipko.

News of the Malaysian Airways plane tragedy broke early on Thursday evening during a reception in honour of Turkish films showing at the festival.

A minute’s silence was held in memory of the crash victims ahead of Gogol Wives’ documentary Pussy vs Putin that evening.

On Friday, another minute of silence was held at the beginning of the awards ceremony in memory of the aeroplane’s passengers as well...

French director to receive the Pardo d’onore at the Locarno Film Festival next month - only the second woman to receive the honour.

French director Agnès Varda is to receive the Pardo d’onore (honorary Leopard) at the 67th edition of the Locarno Film Festival (Aug 6-16).

The festival’s tribute to her will be accompanied by screenings of a selection of her films: the features Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), The Creatures (1966), Lions Love (…and Lies) (1969), Documenteur (1981), Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi, 1985), The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 2000) and The Beaches of Agnes (Les Plages d’Agnès, 2008), and the short film Oncle Yanco (1967), as well as the five episodes of the TV series Agnès de ci de là Varda (2011).

Varda will also take part in an on-stage coversation at the festival.

After working as a theatre photographer, Varda began directing in 1954 with the feature-length film La Pointe Courte, starring [link=nm...

Mark Cousins is a man who knows his cinema. His impressive encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema makes his films a must see for any cinephile. HeyUGuys spoke to Mark ahead of the release of A Story of Children and Film, a study of the relationship between children and cinema.

A Story of Children and Film is very similar to The Story of Film in style. What made you decide to choose children as a subject matter?

Well I didn’t intend to choose children to be honest, I was determined not to make another film about cinema, because A Story of Film had taken 6 years and I was tired. But even to relax, I have a little camera and I shoot stuff, and I was shooting stuff with my niece and nephew in my flat, and you know sometimes when you switch off, that’s when you’re brain starts to go,...

Elena Naumova praises Russian president Putin’s agreement to annex Crimea and Sevastopol.

“Hurrah. A historical moment! We’re finally back Home! Crimea to Russia!” declared Elena Naumova, founder and CEO of the Sevastopol International Film Festival, with the ink on President Putin’s agreement to annex Crimea and Sevastopol still drying.

“Be happy for us, friends!”, Naumova wrote on her Facebook page. “I am very proud of my country! Thank you, my dear Sevastopol people and citizens of Crimea! Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich! You are the best! Of course, not everything is perfect here, but thank you for Sevastopol, of course! I am so happy that it brings me to tears of joy!!!!!!”

Following Putin’s action on Tuesday, Sevastopol’s website now has the festival - scheduled to take place from September 19-24, 2014 - is located in “Russia”.

Ironically, the Odessa International Film Festival is one of the “favourites” in the film category of Naumova...

Exclusive: Call for directors, producers and sales agents to give their films for free to festivals in troubled Ukraine.

Cannes’ Thierry Fremaux, the Berlinale’s Christoph Terhechte and Venice chief Alberto Barbera are among 92 people working at 60 festivals in 38 countries to have answered a call to show solidarity with their Ukrainian festival colleagues.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, the initiative’s coordinator, Warsaw Film Festival director Stefan Laudyn, explained: “When we heard the news from Ukraine, after a quick email and SMS exchange with Sara [Norberg of Helsinki Iff ¨Love & Anarchy¨], Tiina [Lokk of Black Nights F], Tudor [Giurgiu of Tiff/Cluj] and the Stefans [Uhrik and Kitanov of Febiofest and Sofia Iff], we decided to prepare a letter of support and sent it to our friends at film festivals worldwide.”

In the letter, the six festival chiefs called on directors, producers and sales agents to give their films “willingly and for free to all film festivals in Ukraine” and also not to charge any screening fees from Ukrainian festivals this year.

In addition, they asked national...

Youth In Revolt (and More): Cousins Channels Marker

It should be no question that Mark Cousins’ vast knowledge of film history is integral to his own filmmaking process, with his previously lauded endeavor, the epic 15 hour personal tour of cinematic lineage in The Story of Film: An Odyssey posing as a definitive screen history of uncomparable expansiveness. But his employment of film history is not just an implementation of influence. Rather, it is the subject he can not seem to tear himself from. This time around his focus falls on the cinematic depiction of youth in cinema, why they have become unfathomably integral to so many great works of art and how they continue to have our attention on the big screen. Like its predecessor, A Story of Children and Film takes us around the globe and through time to highlight cinematic greatness with the same brilliantly insightful wit,...

Ukrainian films will come under the spotlight at the 4th edition of the Odessa Film Festival, which runs July 12-20.

A total of 19 new Ukrainian projects, at various stages of production, will be presented during the festival in partnership with the Ukrainian State Film Agency including Kira Muratova’s Eternal Homecoming and the first Ukranian 3D horror movie Synevir.

10 Ukrainian projects will compete for a cash prize of $3,250 (€2,500) as part of the Oiff pitching session. These will include Stepne, the debut feature of Marina Vroda who won the Short Film Palme d’Or in Cannes, and crime comedy Pawnshop directed by Lubomyr Levitskiy.

Meanwhile as part of the Work-in-Progress section, clips from nine Ukrainian films or co-productions at the post production stage will be presented.

Pitching Session Projects

The Porcupine

UK, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Ukraine

Director: Srdjan Dragojevic

Battle For Sevastopol

Ukraine, Russia

Director: Sergey Mokritskiy

Volcano

Germany, France, Ukraine...