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The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Monday added a David Lynch short and an episode of his iconic series Twin Peaks to its Franz Kafka retrospective and unveiled the program of its Out of the Past section, featuring classic, cult, rare and “unfairly overlooked” films, screened in their original or restored versions.

Among the highlights are restored versions of Wim Wenders’ 1984 neo-Western drama Paris, Texas and Two English Girls, François Truffaut’s 1971 period drama about a love triangle.

The Wenders film is part of a three-film program presented by Alexandre O. Philippe, the creator of documentary essays about the history of cinema, offering perspectives on the American landscape in cinema. He will also present his 2021 documentary The Taking (2021), which explores American mythology through the socio-philosophical dimensions of the American landscape.

Also part of the Out of the Past program is Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s documentary about...

Generative AI is a contentious topic in the animation industry (and almost everywhere else). However, the upcoming Annecy International Animation Festival (June 9-15) will spotlight works that utilized generative AI software.

In a statement, Annecy artistic director Marcel Jean said the festival received “dozens” of submissions that used AI technology. Four made the cut, including Midnight Specials selection “Who Said Death Is Beautiful?” the Japanese zombie feature from director Ryo Nakajima, as well as three Off-Limits shorts: Felipe Elgueta’s “Data Flesh,” in which images become zombie-like entities; Boris Labbe’s “Glass House,” a sci-fi-inspired glass Tower of Babel; and Claudia Larcher’s “The Great Tree Piece,” an analog/digital physical experience of nature.

“Who Said Death Is Beautiful?” is of particular concern because it used Stable Diffusion by Stability AI, a software that has been the subject of several class-action lawsuits for copyright infringement.

These are not the first AI works at Annecy.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its first wave of program details for its upcoming 58th edition, which is set to take place from June 28 through July 6, 2024. The Czech festival, widely considered to be the most prestigious film festival in Eastern Europe, is set to honor one of the nation’s most famous writers with a new retrospective titled “Franz Kafka and the Cinema.”

The series is set to feature screenings of a wide range of films inspired by the Czech novelist, who famously wove themes of alienation and existential angst into cryptic novels that often flirted with surrealism. Some films, like Orson Welles’ “The Trial” are direct adaptations of Kafka’s writings; but the series also includes movies about Kafka’s life, and films like Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” that were influenced by Kafka’s ideas.

“For decades, Kafka’s oeuvre has functioned as a continuing provocation to filmmakers,...

Ten years ago in January, the people of Egypt took to the streets to demand the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and his regime. It was the most spectacular of the revolutions during the so-called Arab Spring both in numbers and media coverage, as well as for the abject failure of its goals. Manal Khaled’s long-gestating, aptly-named “Trapped” is composed of three stories set in those early days, when people from all walks of life were thrown together during the struggle for freedom, sharing their fears and hopes with strangers. That it struggles to do so is more a reflection of the prosaic nature of the filmmaking rather than the spirit of those involved.

The subject alone is a dangerous one to address in the current Egyptian political climate given the heightened state of repression under the military dictatorship, and Khaled struggled to find backers, ultimately crowdsourcing funding via...

John O'Connor, a visual effects editor who worked alongside Polish filmmaker Zbigniew Rybczynski on the PBS program The Orchestra, died Sunday in Yorktown Heights, New York, after a short illness. He was 61.

O'Connor spent the past 20 years as chief technology officer for Cmi Media Management and was on an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' blue-ribbon panel that judged special effects.

A native of Staten Island, O'Connor worked at Teletronics in New York before joining Rybczynski's Zbig Vision, a pioneering high-definition production facility based in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1989. (Rybczynski won an Oscar for ...

You’d be hard-pressed to find a film that can transcend the unpleasantness of Austrian filmmaker Gerald Kargl’s sole directorial feature, Angst. A title difficult to obtain copies of in the United States, it’s one of those titles passed around amongst aficionados who prefer their boundaries stretched or surpassed when it comes to taste, and the film feels like a progenitor of unsettling material like Man Bites Dog (1992) or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). And yet Kargl’s unsung masterpiece of distress usurps the discomfort engendered in those later titles thanks to ambient score and spectacular camerawork. Touted as a film influencing the likes of Gaspar Noe, on record as proclaiming the title to be ‘the rarest masterpiece of cinema,’ widespread availability should mark this as a film worthy of reconsideration and a much wider cult following.

A troubled individual (Erwin Leder) is released from prison after...

“The fear in her eyes and the knife in the chest. That’s my last memory of my mother. That’s why I had to go to prison for four years, even though she survived.”

Angst screens midnights this Friday and Saturday Night (June 10th and 11th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse

After serving time, a troubled man gets released from prison and starts taking out his sadistic fantasies on an unsuspecting family living in a secluded house. That’s the premise of Angst, an Austrian serial killer flick from 1983 that I am completely unfamiliar with. Angst is loosely based on the true story of Werner Kniesek who killed three people in Austria in 1980 and was never released theatrically in the U.S. Apparently director Gaspar Noé (Irreversible) has embraced it and is behind the film...

In this morning's round-up, we have details on not one, not two, but three slasher films. Savage Weekend, Angst, and The Mutilator are set to be released on Blu-ray between late summer and early fall.

Savage Weekend: From Kino Lorber: "Coming September 29th! On Blu-ray and DVD! From a Brand New 2015 HD Master!

Savage Weekend (1979) Starring Christopher Allport, David Gale, Caitlin O'Heaney, Jeff Pomerantz, William Sanderson and Yancy Butler. Written and Directed by David Paulsen.

Blu-ray, packaging, and extras all produced by Walt Olsen (Scorpion Releasing). Another one of his recommendations!

Special Features:

On camera interview with star William Sanderson On camera interview with star Caitlin O'Heaney On camera interview with star Jeff Pomeranz Original Theatrical Trailer"

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Angst: Gerald Kargl's Angst will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on August 18th.

Blu-ray.com reports that "Independent U.S. distributors Cult Epics will release on...

Angst

Written by Gerald Kargl & Zbigniew Rybczynski

Directed by Gerald Kargl

Austria, 1983

Roger Ebert famously observed that, “Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.” If that’s the case, Angst might be the deepest that cinema has ever plunged into the mind of a psychopath. Dispassionate, clinical, and obsessed with the minutiae of tortured fantasies, director Gerald Kargl ensnares his audience in a monstrous trap. We have certainly seen more graphic films, but few more disturbing in their depiction of true evil. Fans of forbidden cinema must seek out this demented masterpiece. All others must avoid it at all costs.

If you’ve ever wondered what Alex was forced to watch for his aversion therapy in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, it probably resembled something close to Angst. Austrian filmmaker Gerald Kargl concocts a fiendish blend of fact and fiction; a patchwork of...

Slapstick Festival | The Loco London Comedy Film Festival | Rybczynski: Exploring Space | CarnyVille

Slapstick Festival, Bristol

With Buster Keaton back in cinemas (The General is on reissue and there's a retrospective at London's BFI), it's a good time to brush up on silent comedy, and this festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has done much to spread the word, or maybe the subtitle. This year Charlie Chaplin takes his turn in the spotlight and marks the 100th anniversary of his Little Tramp incarnation, with Omid Djalili introducing an orchestra-backed screening of City Lights at Colston Hall on Friday. The seen-it-all crowd will be more intrigued by celebrations of forgotten stars such as Constance Talmadge, Raymond Griffith and Max Davidson. More up to date, Tim Vine explains why he loves Benny Hill (Watershed, 26 Jan), and Phill Jupitus asks Paul McGann and Ralph Brown about the making of Withnail & I (Bristol Old Vic, 26 Jan).

Various venues,...

Angst (Fear)

Written by Gerald Kargl and Zbigniew Rybczynski

Directed by Gerald Kargl

Austria, 1983

When it comes to cinematic portraits of killers, there is a tendency towards the mythic. Because, as a society, we like to keep a safe distance from those who consciously choose to kill others (whether for visceral enjoyment or personal gain), and the process of mythmaking buttresses that distance, making it clear that these people are not only not like us, but they probably couldn’t have existed in the first place. Give them a mask. Give them supernatural abilities. Give them immortality; it’s all ultimately part of the same process of distanciation.

There is no such process afoot in Angst, an Austrian chiller that strips the slasher film of any mythic barriers, but unfortunately robs it of its ability to evoke anything beyond base disgustin the process. Filmed in a style that oscillates between highly subjective and practically omniscient,...

Welcome to Beast’S Flashback, where like the critics said of Elias Mehrige’s Begotten: we point a flood light in those places we choose not to look. For those new to this column, allow the author to explain. In this space we will look at films from the past and present that have, for some reason or another, gone relatively unnoticed...

Even in these modern times, where nothing seems to be hidden, these films have evaded mass viewings, major DVD/Blu-Ray revivals, and far-reaching retrospectives, remaining below the surface, clawing at the coffins of avoidance, screaming to be let loose.

While these movies may not be well known, they still have a resonance on those few who have experienced them, some of which have become well-known genre auteurs, using these underground gems as the measuring stick against their own levels of celluloid depravity. You may have not of heard of them,...