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Early in Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts, Charlie (Nate Hardman) declares to a group of drinking buddies that there’s a time in every man’s life when he must “make a decision between the spiritual and the material.” Until now, Charlie has always chosen the material, and his pronouncement suggests a deliberate mental shift, perhaps as a form of self-preservation to stave off despair. After all, he pounds the pavement day after day, begging for work and filling out employment applications, yet all he ever has to show for it is the occasional temporary landscaping gig or a few bucks from selling catfish he caught by the side of the road.

Where Charlie’s confidence in the spiritual is short-lived—his faith is only ever rewarded by dashed hopes—it remains the central focus of Woodberry’s touching and melancholic feature-length debut. Written with piercing clarity by Charles Burnett,...

Winners of the 2024 Tiger Award and Vpro Big Screen Award announced.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) announces the 2024 winners from its two feature competitions: the Tiger Competition and the Big Screen Competition. The prizes were handed out during the IFFR Awards Ceremony on Friday 2 February, along with the Fipresci, Netpac and Youth Jury awards.

Tiger Competition

IFFR's trademark Tiger Competition celebrates the innovative and adventurous spirit of up-and-coming filmmakers. From the 14 titles presented in the 2024 edition, the jury granted three prizes: the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, and two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each.

Rei (Japan) by Tanaka Toshihiko wins the Tiger Award 2024.

The jury stated: “The jury decided to give the Tiger Award to a burgeoning film director who chose to develop his debut film in a loose and unbounded environment. His strength relies on a collaborative environment centred on the actors, an attention to the power of recitation – and, perhaps most importantly,...

Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” won the audience award at the 53rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam in a strong year for the event, which recorded 253,500 visits across its programs.

Holland’s Venice Jury Prize-winner derives its name from the swampy forests found at the border between Poland and Belarus, a perilous place where hundreds of migrants — mostly from the Middle East and Africa — try to make their way into the European Union. “Green Border” chronicles the intertwined lives of people caught in the geopolitical webs of the crossing and joins several of Holland’s films to have played at IFFR, including “Europa Europa” and “Burning Bush.”

This year’s edition of the festival, which took place between Jan. 25 – Feb. 4, featured 424 films, 183 of which were world premieres, plus accompanying programs including Art Directions and IFFR Talks. As part of the Talks program, the festival welcomed names such as Sandra Hüller,...

Toshihiko Tanaka’s Rei won the top prize at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), taking home the €40,000 Tiger award at tonight’s closing ceremony (February 2).

The Japanese actor’s three-hour directorial debut explores human connection through a thirtysomething woman who embarks on a journey through the mountains and meets a deaf photographer. Tanaka also stars and produced the film which used mostly non-professionals and students in the cast and crew.

The jury, which included former IFFR director Marco Müller, said of the film: “[Tanaka’s] strength relies on a collaborative environment centred on the actors, an attention to the power of recitation – and,...

Tanaka Toshihiko’s “Rei” was awarded the Tiger Award, the top prize of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, on Friday. Toshihiko’s feature debut chronicles a woman in her early 30s employed in a corporate job in Tokyo who meets a deaf landscape photographer living deep in the mountains of Hokkaido.

Toshihiko worked with a cast and crew of mostly-non professionals and students and not only directed “Rei,” but also produced, edited and acted in the film. He takes home a prize worth €40,000 given by a jury comprised of “Sweet Dreams” director Ena Sendijarević, producer and historian Marco Müller, “Ebola Syndrome” director and screenwriter Herman Yau, pioneering “Bless Their Little Hearts” filmmaker Billy Woodberry and producer Nadia Turincev.

The jury called Toshihiko a “burgeoning film director who chose to develop his debut film in a loose and unbounded environment,” and whose strength lies in “a collaborative environment centered on the actors.

Japanese actor and director Toshihiko Tanaka’s human relationships drama Rei and Iranian filmmaker Oktay Baraheni’s tale of identity and society The Old Bachelor have won the top awards at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Rei won the €40,000 Tiger Award in the main Competition.

The drama revolves around a woman in her early thirties in a company job in Tokyo who is struggling to understand the value of her life until she meets a deaf landscape photographer living deep in the mountains of Hokkaido.

“The jury decided to give the Tiger Award to a burgeoning film director who chose to develop his debut film in a loose and unbounded environment,” said the jury consisting of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Billy Woodberry and Herman Yau.

The two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each, went to Indian director Midhun Murali’s Kiss Wagon, a political drama shot with a shadow play technique,...

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) opens this evening with New Zealand director Jonathan Olgilvie’s coming-of-age tale Head South set against the late 1970s, post-punk music culture of his home city of Christchurch.

IFFR previously selected Olgilvie’s sci-fi thriller Lone Wolf for its Big Screen Competition in 2021.

“It’s the first time we’re going to meet him in person because it was during Corona,” says IFFR Artistic Director Vanja Kaludjercic of the first selection.

“When you put the two films side by side, you ask how can one filmmaker make two such different films,” she adds. “We really admire his creativity and ingenuity.”

Over the course of the next 10 days, Rotterdam will screen some 440 works.

The Main Competition for this 53rd edition is characteristically diverse.

The 14 features in the running for the main Tiger Award include Brooklyn-based filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, exploring the life of the titular,...

Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie, will be among those taking part in on-stage talks at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which runs Jan. 25 to Feb. 4.

Harry narrates the latest film by Amanda Kramer, “So Unreal,” an essay-documentary about the relationships between cinema, humanity and technology. On Jan. 27, the two will give an IFFR Talk discussing their work as artists with distinctive esthetics whose careers have developed across film and music.

As previously announced, other speakers in the IFFR Talk program include actor Sandra Hüller, and directors Anne Fontaine, Marco Bellocchio, Bill Plympton and Billy Woodberry.

Directors attending with their titles in the Limelight section, which is for films from established filmmakers, include Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante with “Lost in the Night,” Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland with “Green Border” and Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania with “Four Daughters,” which is shortlisted for an Oscar.

Fontaine will attend the world premiere of her 19th feature film,...

Sandra Hüller, who is an awards contender with “The Zone of Interest” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” will be one of the guest speakers taking part in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Talks program later this month.

In her talk, Hüller will “delve into her acting trajectory, discussing the highlights of her career, but also lesser-known performances – including work in the theater and other arts,” the festival said. She will talk about her approach to acting and character with an emphasis on “The Zone of Interest,” playing at this year’s festival, and the different methods of the directors she has collaborated with through the years.

The program also includes a talk by Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio, who comes to IFFR with his latest examination of Italian history, “Rapito.” In this wide-ranging talk, Bellocchio will “reveal his passion as a filmmaker and his emotional connection to all stages of the filmmaking process.

Other speakers at festival include Marco Bellocchio, Billy Woodberry and Anne Fontaine.

Sandra Hüller has joined the line-up of special guests confirmed for the talks programme at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which runs from January 25-February 4.

Hüller will discuss her recent work, including on Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest, which plays in the IFFR 2024 Limelight section, and on the Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy Of A Fall for which she won the European Film Award for best actress in December 2023.

Also speaking in the IFFR Talks programme is Italian director Marco Bellocchio whose latest feature Rapito is screening at the festival.

Sandra Hüller Set For Rotterdam Talks Program

Awards season frontrunner Sandra Hüller has joined the roster of speakers lined up for the talks program of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. She joins 16 previously announced talks guests who also include L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Billy Woodberry, veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio, animation maestro Bill Plympton, French director Anne Fontaine and avant-garde German director Alexander Kluge, who continues to blaze a trail at the age of 91 with his new AI work Cosmic Miniatures. As previously announced, IFFR opens with Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South and 14 titles are in the running for its top Tiger award.

Bavaria Fiction Restructures Development Team

Germany’s Bavaria Fiction is rejigging its development team with Thomas Kren placed in charge. Work has begun to restructure the unit, with Kren expanding his existing role to “accelerate and coordinate...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its lineup for the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions. The festival runs from January 25-February 4. Scroll down for the full lists.

Head South by Jonathan Ogilvie will open the proceedings with M. Raihan Halim’s comedy La Luna on closing duties. The Tiger Competition jury will be comprised of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Herman Yau and Billy Woodberry.

Also confirmed are the first names for the Talks lineup including Marco Bellocchio, Anne Fontaine, Alexander Kluge and Rachel Maclean.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic said today, “For over half a century, IFFR has stood as a haven for diverse voices – a convergence where artists share perspectives. Our program celebrates the resilience and creativity of global filmmakers, a testament to cinema’s power to transcend borders. From Indian to Japanese epics, a Kazakh thriller, Finnish Freudian reinterpretations, Dominican sci-fi and underground Iranian cinema,...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed that Belgian cinematographer Grimm Vandekerckhove will be the recipient of the fifth annual Robby Müller Award, which pays homage to the craft of artists working behind the lens in the spirit of the celebrated cinematographer.

Vandekerckhove is “known for delicately capturing the inner lives of characters,” the festival said, such as a cleaning lady on a late-night journey in “Ghost Tropic” or the encounter of a foreign construction worker and a moss researcher in “Here,” both directed by Bas Devos. He also shot Stephan Streker’s “A Wedding,” about a teenager forced into an arranged marriage.

“With profound commitment and a wondrous tranquillity he captures details and hidden shades of everyday existence in his own singular way that mirrors the emotionally moving images of Robby Müller,” the jury stated.

In other announcements, the festival, which runs Jan. 25 – Feb. 4, revealed that the jury for the...

Titles for the Limelight, Harbour, Cinema Regained and Focus strands have been added to the line-up.

Marco Müller, who headed International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) from 1989-1991, is returning as part of the 2024 Tiger international competition jury.

He is being joined by Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević,producer, industry expert and founder of Easy Rider Films, Nadia Turincev; Hong Kong filmmaker Herman Yau; and LA Rebellion film movement figure and filmmaker Billy Woodberry, whose title Mário will have its world premiere in the Harbour strand.

They will choose the winners of the Tiger award, worth €40,000, and the special jury awards, worth...

Rotterdam Film Festival Sets ‘Head South’ As Opening Film

Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.

Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival

U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...

Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk coming-of-age comedy “Head South” will open the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam on Jan. 25, with the festival running until Feb. 4.

Ogilvie’s semi-autobiographical film is set in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1979 where a private schoolboy becomes desperately enamored with all things post-punk. The director’s last film, thriller “Lone Wolf,” screened in the festival’s Big Screen competition section in 2021.

Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR festival director, said: “With ‘Head South,’ Jonathan Ogilvie returns to the festival with an unpredictable coming-of-age story that delights in its shifting tone. Quirkiness and nostalgia become sober and thoughtful, only to turn exuberant and then something else again, in a fitting tribute to post-punk subculture. Ogilvie is the kind of filmmaker we cherish at IFFR: those for whom the art is, above all, an adventure of discovery.”

Other films to have their world premieres at the Dutch festival include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla...

IFFR will run from January 25 to February 4.

The 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will open with Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk coming-of-age comedy Head South on January 25.

New Zealand director Ogilvie returns to IFFR with Head South, a semi-autobiographical film that centres a private schoolboy who becomes desperately enamoured with all things post-punk in 1979 Christchurch. Ogilvie’s last film Lone Wolf screened in the festival’s Big Screen Competition in 2021.

The festival has also confirmed some of the first titles to play in its programme, along with details about industry event IFFR Pro Days.

Ishan Shukla’s dystopian sci-fi animation Schirkoa:...

Charles Burnett is best known for his landmark portraits of Black American life, from the aching neorealism of “Killer of Sheep” to the mordant mysticism of “To Sleep with Anger,” his films aim to depict the broken contract the country made with its African American citizens in the aftermath of World War II.

His lesser-known masterpiece “My Brother’s Wedding,” however, is emblematic of a different continuum running through Burnett’s films: the theme of becoming.

An intimate window into early ’80s Los Angeles, where confluences of Black Southern roots were still trying to flower in a hostile urban environment — “My Brother’s Wedding” is a heated tale about the perils of upward mobility, the rising drug epidemic, and the tight alliance shared by two Black men, Pierce (Everett Silas) and Soldier (Ronnie Bell), the latter of whom has just been released from prison as the film begins.

Young and proudly working-class,...

Brandon Harris—an educator, programmer, author, producer, director, executive as well as a longtime contributing editor at Filmmaker—has curated a series at Metrograph in commemoration of Black History Month. Entitled “Strange Fruit,” the series features an impressive slate of titles spanning several decades, from Pierre Chenal’s black and white Argentine drama Native Son to Billy Woodberry’s seminal L.A. Rebellion film Bless Their Little Hearts. The opening night selection, which played on Sunday, February 5, was Elvis Mitchell’s NYFF-premiering essay film Is That Black Enough for You?!? Several special screenings have also been programmed, including Del Lord’s 1927 silent film Topsy and Eva […]

The post Brandon Harris Curates “Strange Fruit” Series at Metrograph in Honor of Black History Month first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Brandon Harris—an educator, programmer, author, producer, director, executive as well as a longtime contributing editor at Filmmaker—has curated a series at Metrograph in commemoration of Black History Month. Entitled “Strange Fruit,” the series features an impressive slate of titles spanning several decades, from Pierre Chenal’s black and white Argentine drama Native Son to Billy Woodberry’s seminal L.A. Rebellion film Bless Their Little Hearts. The opening night selection, which played on Sunday, February 5, was Elvis Mitchell’s NYFF-premiering essay film Is That Black Enough for You?!? Several special screenings have also been programmed, including Del Lord’s 1927 silent film Topsy and Eva […]

The post Brandon Harris Curates “Strange Fruit” Series at Metrograph in Honor of Black History Month first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including Carla Simón’s Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, a series celebrating Black cinema with works from Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ephraim Asili, Bill Duke, and more.

Additional highlights include Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, shorts by Emilija Škarnulytė, and the beginning of a series spotlighting Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

February 1 – Softie, directed by Samuel Theis | From France with Love

February 2 – The Sleeping Negro, directed by Skinner Myers

February 3 – Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater

February 4 – To Sleep with Anger, directed by Charles Burnett

February 5 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer | Performers We Love

February 6 – Aphotic Zone, directed by Emilija...

The Haile Gerima story is one of personal and professional resistance. A warrior whose chosen weapon is cinema, Gerima has been at the forefront of the Black independent film movement for almost 50 years, leading a charge to counter the West’s history of gross misrepresentations of the Black experience with complete and complex stories about what it means to be Black, viewed through a global lens.

Most exemplary of this ethos is his epic 1993 slavery-era revolt drama, “Sankofa,” which has now been given new life in a partnership between Gerima’s Mypheduh Films and Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing. A brand-new 4K restoration of the film is available today on Netflix in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Gerima will also be honored by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with its inaugural Vantage Award as part of its opening gala on September 25.

For Gerima, the chance...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Francis Ford Coppola for Wall Street Journal. (Photographed by Austin Hargrave) In a new interview with Deadline, Francis Ford Coppola has announced that he's starting to assemble a cast and prepare financing for his long-gestating passion project, the epic film Megalopolis. "I’m still willing to do the dream picture, even if I have to put up my own money, and I am capable of putting up $100 million if I have to here." Hou Hsiao-hsien and Lee Kang-sheng are currently attached to Twisted Strings, a TV anthology series written and directed by Huang Xi. Hou will be the executive producer of the series, while Lee will star in a role that is "like nothing he had ever portrayed before." Kaycee Moore, the star of Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, has died. Throughout her career,...

Kaycee Moore, star of “Killer of Sheep” and “Bless Their Little Hearts,” died on Aug. 13. She was 77.

Born in Kansas City in 1944, Moore met director Charles Burnett while he was still in film school at UCLA, booked her first major role as Stan’s wife in his 1978 film “Killer of Sheep.” Burnett received an honorary Oscar in 2018 for his films such as “Killer of Sheep,” which depicted the realities of socioeconomic oppression faced by the Black community in Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Five years later, Moore starred as Andais Banks in “Bless Their Little Hearts,” which was written by Burnett and directed by Billy Woodberry. The film, which followed a family in Watts as it navigates race, money and gender, was met with critical acclaim.

Moore also appeared in Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” and the 1999 film “Ninth Street,” directed by Tim Rebman and Kevin Willmott.

Three...

Mubi has unveiled their lineup for next month, featuring the exclusive streaming premiere of Frederick Wiseman’s masterful documentary City Hall, the late Monte Hellman’s final film Road to Nowhere, a trio of works by Stephen Cone, two films by Alain Resnais, the multi-month series Sex, Truth, and Videotape: French Feminist Activism, and Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant.

As a special addition in addition to the regular programming listed below, the new restoration of Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris will be available as a free presentation celebrating Juneteenth, from June 18-19. Timed with the release of his latest gem Undine, a Christian Petzold retrospective continues with his earlier, essential films Yella, Barbara, Ostwärts, and The Warm Money.

Check out the lineup below, with links to reviews where available, and get 30 days of Mubi for free here. One can also check back for our new streaming picks every Friday here.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: Hour Glass (1971)Film scholar Clyde Taylor coined the name "L.A. Rebellion” for a retrospective of the Black cinema made at UCLA between the 1960s and 80s that was held at the Whitney Museum in 1986. The name conflates the filmmakers’ radical aesthetics with the Watts Rebellion and Black Power and Civil Rights Movements. It does not account for the Asian, Latinx, Native American and white film students who also sought styles outside the Hollywood formula, and remains a point of contention for some of those Black filmmakers it gathers under one denomination. “Rebellion” suggests a collective response to the status quo, rather than a series of independent expressions with diverse influences and motivations. But the slogan stuck, and, for better or worse, remains the most common calling card for a...

Above: French petite poster for Mirror. Designer unknown.I first saw Tarkovsky’s Mirror—a film I consistently name as my favorite film of all time—in December 1987, at the Cosmos Theater on the Rue de Rennes in Paris. The Cosmos was a large Art Deco theater that had opened in 1934 as the Lux Rennes and in 1962 had been purchased by Jacques Tati and renamed L’Arlequin. In 1978 it was bought by a company that specialized in imports from the Ussr; they changed its name to Le Cosmos and for the next 14 years focused on screening Soviet films. It was during that period that I saw Mirror though I knew none of that history at the time. (In 1992 it was renamed L’Arlequin and still operates under that name today.) The poster above, which I assume dates from the film’s first release in France in 1978, was probably the poster...

The New York Times put prestigious specialty home-video distributor The Criterion Collection under a microscope late last week, and the headline said it all: “How the Criterion Collection Crops Out African-American Directors.” The report looked at all 22 years and more than 1,000 titles in the Criterion’s revered selection of Blu-rays and DVDs of films, finding that only four African Americans are represented: Oscar Micheaux (“Body and Soul”); William Greaves; Charles Burnett (“To Sleep With Anger”); and Spike Lee (“Do the Right Thing” and “Bamboozled”).

It’s a glaring omission for a company that prides itself on licensing and releasing what it describes as “important classic and contemporary films,” but also reflective of an industry-wide practice of shutting out Black filmmakers.

Despite America’s changing demographics, the industry’s most powerful leaders have been slow to respond to a demand for films that reflect cultural and racial shifts that have long been underway.

The streaming pool just keeps getting deeper. Joining fellow boutique distributors like Kino Lorber, Film Movement, and Cinema Tropical, Grasshopper Film is now making the jump into the streaming world, armed with the brand-new Projectr, a deeply curated platform that already boasts films from auteurs like Bong Joon Ho, Claire Denis, Hong Sangsoo, and Pedro Costa.

“So many of the acclaimed international and American Independent films that cinephiles hunger to see have fallen through the cracks of current Tvod providers,” Grasshopper Film founder Ryan Krivoshey told IndieWire. “With Projectr, we are seeking to remedy that oversight and create an accessible treasure trove for movie lovers. We’ve long contemplated a curated streaming platform — where viewers could immerse themselves in some of the most adventurous, exciting and important independent cinema. During these past months, we’ve realized this is more urgent than ever.”

Available today, Projectr will function as both a...

The streaming pool just keeps getting deeper. Joining fellow boutique distributors like Kino Lorber, Film Movement, and Cinema Tropical, Grasshopper Film is now making the jump into the streaming world, armed with the brand-new Projectr, a deeply curated platform that already boasts films from auteurs like Bong Joon Ho, Claire Denis, Hong Sangsoo, and Pedro Costa.

“So many of the acclaimed international and American Independent films that cinephiles hunger to see have fallen through the cracks of current Tvod providers,” Grasshopper Film founder Ryan Krivoshey told IndieWire. “With Projectr, we are seeking to remedy that oversight and create an accessible treasure trove for movie lovers. We’ve long contemplated a curated streaming platform — where viewers could immerse themselves in some of the most adventurous, exciting and important independent cinema. During these past months, we’ve realized this is more urgent than ever.”

Available today, Projectr will function as both a...

The coronavirus pandemic is still going on, and shutdowns are being lifted oh so gently. That generally means two things: go outside with a mask on while strafing away from passersby on the sidewalk, or stay in and watch stuff. Luckily, The Criterion Channel has announced its June 2020 lineup, which is full of things old and new.

June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...

The Museum of Modern Art has unveiled its full festival lineup of 28 features and shorts for Doc Fortnight 2020, its annual showcase of the best of nonfiction film, on Monday. The list includes the latest works from the likes of Michael Almereyda, Terrence Nance, Denis Côté, Sky Hopinka, Lucretia Martel, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ben Rivers, Lynn Sachs, Kazuhiro Soda, Roger Ross Williams, Maya Khoury and the Abounaddara Collective.

Now in its 19th year, Doc Fortnight will run from February 5 to 19, 2020, and will include 12 world premieres, 17 North American premieres, and 14 Us premieres from 38 countries. Doc Fortnight 2020 opens with the New York premiere of “Crip Camp,” a portrait of Camp Jened—a camp for disabled teenagers near Woodstock, New York, that thrived in the late 1960s and ’70s—which established a close-knit community of campers who would become pioneering disability advocates. The film is co-directed and produced by Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht,...

Thai-German title Santikhiri Sonata won in the international competition, while Pedro Felipe Marques' Breeding Ground triumphed in the Portuguese section. The 17th Doclisboa International Film Festival (17 - 27 October) wrapped with the triumph of Santkihiri Sonata, a Thai-German co-production directed by Thunska Pansittivorakul. The experimental, associative docu-fiction hybrid about the eponymous region in the north of Thailand and the rule of General Prem Tinsulanonda and its consequences, received the City of Lisboa Award worth €8,000 from the jury composed of Billy Woodberry, Carlos Almeida, Jérôme Bel, Juliano Gomes, Leonor Silveira and Mania Akbari. The film had its world premiere at Doclisboa. The Portuguese Authors Society International Competition Jury Award worth €2,000 went to French filmmaker Frank Beauvais's Berlinale Forum title Just Don't Think I'll Scream, while Brazilian director Jo Serfaty received a special mention for Sun Inside, which had its international premiere at Doclisboa. In the Portuguese Competition, the...

Seven Portuguese titles will screen during the Berlinale, and a bevy of Portuguese producers are attending the European Film Market seeking co-producers and international sales agents for their projects.

Two Portuguese features will screen in the non-competitive Berlinale Forum dedicated to more avant-garde cinema. “The Portuguese Woman,” a historical drama by Rita Azevedo Gomes, is based on Robert Musil’s “Three Women,” adapted by Portuguese novelist, Agustina Bessa-Luis. The film premiered at Argentina’s Mar del Plata. It has an austere filmic style, based on static movements of the actors, thereby creating tableaux vivants.

“Serpentarius” is about a young man in search of his mother’s ghost in a post-disaster African landscape. Angolan-born Carlos Conceição’s shorts include “Goodnight Cinderella” and “Bad Bunny” which both played in Cannes’ Critics Week.

The Forum Expanded sidebar includes 40-minute experimental documentary “Fordlandia Malaise” by Susana de Sousa Dias, about failed utopia Fordlandia, established...

Billy Woodberry was a graduate student in UCLA’s film program when he started work on Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), a gauzy black-and-white portrait of a married couple in Watts as their responsibilities to one another are tested by the burdens of underemployment. Day-to-day gigging against a background of vanishing local industry, Charlie Banks (Nate Hardman) embarks on an affair, while his exhausted wife Andais (Kaycee Hardman) works double-time, commuting to her own job while also looking after their home and children. Chafing against the confines of roles that no longer seem to fit, their affections are suffocated by limits […]...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveriesRECOMMENDED VIEWINGThe first full trailer for Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve's sequel to Ridley Scott's original starring Ryan Gosling alongside Harrison Ford, looks like a storyboard come to (digital) life.An all-too-brief look at some kind of footage from the new Twin Peaks, with Everett McGill, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie, Harry Goaz, Michael Horse, and Kyle MacLachlan looking like figures in an eerie waxworks.Milestone will soon be theatrically releasing a new restoration of Billy Woodberry's debut film, Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), written and shot by Killer of Sheep's Charles Burnett.Philippe Garrel meets David Lynch? Indeed! In a new video essay, Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin look at the "holy family" (mother, father, and child) in early experimental films by each director, Lynch's The Grandmother (1969) and Garrel's Le révélateur (1968), the latter of which is now playing on Mubi.

The 45th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 27 through February 7 and in the past week or two, Iffr has rolled out lineups featuring new work by Takeshi Kitano, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Jerzy Skolimowski, Hashiguchi Ryosuke, Billy Woodberry, Grant Gee, Philippe Grandrieux, Arturo Ripstein, John Gianvito, Ben Rivers, Philippe Garrel, Laurie Anderson, Brady Corbet, Claire Simon, Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nicolás Pereda, Ben Wheatley, Mike Ott and Nathan Silver—and many more. » - David Hudson...

The 45th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 27 through February 7 and in the past week or two, Iffr has rolled out lineups featuring new work by Takeshi Kitano, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Jerzy Skolimowski, Hashiguchi Ryosuke, Billy Woodberry, Grant Gee, Philippe Grandrieux, Arturo Ripstein, John Gianvito, Ben Rivers, Philippe Garrel, Laurie Anderson, Brady Corbet, Claire Simon, Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nicolás Pereda, Ben Wheatley, Mike Ott and Nathan Silver—and many more. » - David Hudson...

Among the groundbreaking group of filmmakers who were part of the Black independent filmmaking movement based in Los Angeles known as the La Rebellion during the late 70's to the 80's (Charles Burnett, Julie Dash and Halie Gerima, and others), Billy Woodberry may not immediately come to mind. But he was no less an important member of this movement; his 1984 drama "Bless Their Little Hearts," based on a screenplay by Burnett, is a seminal and influential work of black independent cinema. Since then, Woodberry has been working as a video and multimedia installation artist, with his works showcased around the world - Viennale, DocLisboa, Amiens International...

Thom Andersen and Pedro Costa on stage at the Courtisane Festival. Photo by Michiel Devijver.This year’s Courtisane Festival paired Pedro Costa and Thom Andersen as their artists in focus. Both filmmakers hung out with each other and the public for the full five days of this under-recognized gem of a festival in Ghent. What at first might seem very different directors with distinct backgrounds actually proved to be kindred spirits. In the end credits of his new cine-history, The Thoughts That Once We Had, Andersen thanks Costa, because “without [him] this motion picture would have been poorer.” Andersen has admired Costa’s work ever since he discovered In Vanda’s Room (2000) at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in 2001. He wrote about this experience and about Colossal Youth (2006) in Film Comment in 2007. Andersen has invited Costa to CalArts, where he teaches, more than once, and Cinema Scope published a...

2. For Paulo Rocha

Weekend 2 - Day 1 - December 13th, 2013

The second Harvard-Gulbenkian program centers around a vitally important yet still under appreciated figure of the post-WW2 Portuguese cinema, the late Paulo Rocha whose influential masterpiece of poetic neo-realism, Mudar de vida (1966) is offered both in tribute to his recent passing and as an occasion to reconsider Rocha's cinema and legacy. Looking beyond the historic "Cinema Novo" movement with which this film and Rocha himself are most closely associated, Mudar de vida is placed here within a broader, alternate context: in dialogue with the films and presence of Víctor Gaviria and Billy Woodberry, two directors inspired, like Rocha, to renew the promise of a truly "popular cinema" intimate with the stories, experiences and landscapes of the people depicted and ultimately empowered by their films. Unseen in Portugal, the films of Gaviria and Woodberry offer revelational compliments to Rocha's lyrical realism, each...

Mubi is proud to present work produced for Harvard at the Gulbenkian, a collaboration between the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Harvard Film Archive. Curated by Haden Guest and Joaquim Sapinho, and produced by Pedro Fernandes Duarte, Harvard at the Gulbenkian organizes a series of dialogues about Portuguese film and world cinema. The series consists of 12 weekends, between November 2013 and July 2014, in which a Portuguese filmmaker and one, two or three international filmmakers, and one or more important film critics or scholars of many nationalities are brought together for a series of screenings and public discussions. We will be hosting the articles and video conversations produced for the series, and this index will be updated as events take place in Lisbon.

"The inaugural weekend of the Harvard-Gulbenkian collaboration makes clear the central ambition and idea of our program: a radical rethinking and recontextualization of Portuguese cinema within the broader realm of world cinema.

‘Gilda,’ ‘Pulp Fiction’: 2013 National Film Registry movies (photo: Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’) See previous post: “‘Mary Poppins’ in National Film Registry: Good Timing for Disney’s ‘Saving Mr. Banks.’” Billy Woodberry’s UCLA thesis film Bless Their Little Hearts (1984). Stanton Kaye’s Brandy in the Wilderness (1969). The Film Group’s Cicero March (1966), about a Civil Rights march in an all-white Chicago suburb. Norbert A. Myles’ Daughter of Dawn (1920), with Hunting Horse, Oscar Yellow Wolf, Esther Labarre. Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002), featuring decomposing archival footage. Alfred E. Green’s Ella Cinders (1926), with Colleen Moore, Lloyd Hughes, Vera Lewis. Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956), with Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Robby the Robot. Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. John and Faith Hubley’s Oscar-winning animated short The Hole (1962). Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), with Best Actor Oscar winner Maximilian Schell,...

The Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today named 25 motion pictures that have been selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for 2013. And on this year's list includes Billy Woodberry's woefully under-seen 1984 feature film, Bless Their Little Hearts, which fellow L.A. Rebellion comrade Charles Burnett wrote the screenplay for, and shot as well, by the way. Other notable picks include the 1966 documentary Cicero March, which details the September 4, 1966 Civil Rights led by Robert Lucas (Congress of Racial Equality) through Cicero, Illinois to protest restrictions in housing...

Editor's Note: The La Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema film series tour continues its travels, making its final stop in Atlanta (Ga), running October 25 through November 24, 2013. The Atl installment of the series is sponsored by Emory University’s Department of Film and Media Studies, liquid blackness, for Georgia State University’s Department of Communication, and the Atlanta Film Festival, in association with UCLA Film & Television Archive. Billy Woodberry’s 1984 feature Bless Their Little Hearts is a film more admired than seen and more’s the pity. To my knowledge, the film has never been issued...

As I said, when I hosted one of screening before of the L.A. Rebellion black film series a few weeks ago, when it came to black filmmakers, these were the black filmmakers I knew and who inspired me before other more famous black filmmakers attracted the public’s attention. Long before Spike lee, Reginald Hudlin John Singleton, Antoine Fuqua, just to name a few, black cinema was defined by the works of Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Zeinabu irene Davis Charles Burnett , Ben Caldwell, Barbara McCullough (pictured above) Billy Woodberry and Larry Clark just to name a few as well. They were all, at one time during the early 70’s to the mid-1980’s, film students at UCLA...

The 9th in the ongoing series of the Chicago screenings of the L.A. Rebellion touring film series, will continue on Saturday May 25th with a screening of filmmaker Billy Woodberry’s powerful and poignant 1984 feature film, Bless Their Little Hearts.Clearly inspired by the work of Charles Burnett and Italian post-World War II neo-realist films of Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, the film deals with an African-American family struggling to survive and find its way through the cruel and dehumanizing conditions of South Central Los Angeles. And, of course, Woodberry himself will be present for the screening.And along with Hearts, there will be a screening of a new ...

This weekend in Chicago could be called Billy Woodberry Weekend since the independent filmmaker and his works will be featured in two important screenings both taking place this Saturday.First, Woodberry will make an appearance at the Black Cinema House in Chicago to screen and discuss segments from the epic length installation video The Architect the Ants and The Bees which he created in 2004The video documents the construction of the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles and not only the effect that the project had on the city and “concentrating as well on the gender and racial makeup of the workforce that built it”.The screening which is co-presented...

Editor's Note: The retro is being rebooted for runs in Philly, Toronto and New York through February. Over the next few weeks, we'll be revisiting our reviews/write-ups/interviews on the series (from Brandon Wilson and Nijla Mumin) when it begun in Los Angeles over a year ago... here's another. The overview and complete lineup speak for themselves, so click Here to head over to the home site for the series. Saturday's screening of Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts, couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Set in the decaying urban centers of Los Angeles in the early 1980’s, the film is a rare glimpse into a working...

Damn! I totally effed up and scheduled our podcast season debut tonight, completely forgetting that the MoMA Charles Burnett retrospective also begins tonight! And with his masterpiece too, Killer Of Sheep, which I Still haven’t seen on the big screen, and really want to. I have the recently released DVD issue, but, I think this is a film I’d really love to see in a theater, in all its gritty black and white glory.

Anyway… I already alerted you to this about 2 or 3 weeks ago, so consider this a reminder! MoMA sent out the below press release which details the entire retrospective.

But I’ll break it down for you:

What is it? Charles Burnett is being feted at MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art, here in New York City) with a series titled Charles Burnett: The Power To Endure.

When is it? April 6-25, 2011.

Where is it?...