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Following a recent Los Angeles screening for “Semmelweis,” Hungary’s 2025 Oscars entry for Best International Feature, director Lajos Koltai was greeted by a standing ovation before sitting down for a Q & A hosted by Gold Derby. The Oscar-nominated cinematographer (“Malena”) discussed why he decided to direct his third feature film, which has gone on to become one of Hungary’s biggest hits of the year.

“It was a lucky thing,” he said of the film’s success. “People went to see it and we had record numbers in Hungary. Young people went to see it. Teenagers! They talk to each other and say, ‘I have to see it again tomorrow. I want to learn about it. I want to understand. So they come back the next day and bring their friends. People deeply love it, which is a really good thing.”

“Semmelweis” stars Miklós H. Vecsei as Dr. Semmelweis Ignác...

In the dimly illuminated medical realm of 19th-century Vienna, a pioneering film arises to chronicle the incredible story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who dared to defy medical convention. Directed by Lajos Koltai, “Semmelweis” depicts a watershed moment in medical history that would ultimately save many lives.

Set in 1847, the film transports viewers to a bleak medical scene in which maternity wards were feared as death factories. Miklós H. Vecsei presents Semmelweis as a passionate and driven young doctor working at Vienna General Hospital, where an unexplained tragedy occurred. Puerperal fever, an unknown murderer of new moms, terrified pregnant women so much that they would prefer to give birth on the street than visit a hospital.

A pregnant woman screaming on the street, afraid of the hospital’s lethal reputation, is the opening scene of the film that best illustrates this horror drama. Semmelweis started a research that would become revolutionary.

The scream that pierces through the opening of “Semmelweis” sets the tone for the 19th century-set drama from Lajos Koltai, about the groundbreaking Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, immediately showing its concern for a very pregnant young woman desperately roaming the streets for a proper place to give birth. Loath to check in to local clinics that have acquired a reputation for patients mysteriously dying in postpartum care, her shaken faith in the health care system sets a distinctly modern emphasis for the sturdy, old-fashioned Vienna period piece, selected as Hungary’s official Oscar selection after it became a local box office hit.

Even without taking a look at a picture of the real balding and bespectacled Dr. Semmelweis, it’s immediately clear Koltai wants to deliver something that’s more popcorn than medicinal when he gives a movie star entrance to the dashing Miklós H. Vecsei, playing the film’s title role.

Andras Hamori, the Hungarian film and television producer whose credits included Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, István Szabó’s Sunshine and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, has died. He was 71.

Hamori died Sept. 2 in Budapest after a long illness that prevented him from working in recent years, his friend Mia Taylor announced.

Hamori, who worked out of Toronto early in his career and was a partner in Alliance Entertainment, also guided the cult horror classic The Gate (1987), starring Stephen Dorff in his first major role; Stephen Frears’ Chéri (2009), starring Michelle Pfeiffer; and the 2014 History Channel miniseries Houdini, starring Adrien Brody.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which earned Egoyan Oscar nominations for best director and adapted screenplay, revolved around a school bus accident in a Canadian town that killed 14 children.

Sunshine (1999) told the story of several generations of a Jewish family set against the backdrop of Hungarian history. It starred Ralph Fiennes, was...

The 21st Sevilla European Film Festival will take place this Nov. 8-16, and Variety has been given an exclusive heads-up on this year’s competition juries that will choose the winners of the Gold and Silver Giraldillos as well as the special judges’ prize and a new award, the Puerta América Award.

Dedicated specifically to contemporary European film, Sevilla aims to bring the best in European cinematographic culture to the south of Spain for dialogues between the new artists and recognized figures from the industry while also dedicating space to new media for cinematographic expression.

Jurists for this year’s main competition section include British producer David Puttnam, who will chair the jury, Oscar-winning British actor Jeremy Irons, Rome Film Fest artistic director Paola Malanga, French programmer Eva Rekettyei, and French-Algerian director Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”).

Accompanying today’s jury announcements, Sevilla shared details about its new Puerta América Award, granted...

France has selected Jacques Audiard’s bold musical “Emilia Perez” to represent the country in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film race, giving that category an instant frontrunner at the 97th Academy Awards.

The Netflix film, which caused a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival with its story of a Mexican drug lord undergoing sex reassignment surgery, is considered one of the year’s likeliest Best Picture nominees, making it a clear favorite in the international category as well.

It was chosen on Wednesday by a selection committee that had narrowed its choices to four: “Emilia Perez,” Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” Matthieu Delaporte’s “The Count of Monte Cristo” and Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia.”

Last year, that committee chose “The Taste of Things” over “Anatomy of a Fall,” going with a ravishing romance over an edgier drama that had won the top prize in Cannes. “The Taste of Things...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Hungary has picked Lajos Koltai’s biopic Semmelweis as its contender for the 2025 Oscars in the best international feature category.

The feature traces the life of Hungarian doctor Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures who became known as “the savior of mothers” for his efforts in fighting deadly infections following childbirth. Set in 19th-century Vienna, it shows Semmelweis, played by Miklós H. Vecsei as a passionate, if short-tempered, doctor determined to find the cause of puerperal fever, a mysterious epidemic decimating patients after childbirth. Even after he discovers the cause of the infection and a means to prevent it, his peers and superiors work to discredit him.

Semmelweis was a commercial hit back home, selling more than 350,000 tickets and grossing more than $2 million on its theatrical release, becoming the most successful Hungarian movie of the past five years. Nfi World Sales is handling world sales on the title.

“Semmelweis,” which Nfi World Sales will be selling at the European Film Market in Berlin, has become the highest grossing Hungarian movie in local theaters in five years.

The film is directed by Lajos Koltai who was Oscar nominated as the cinematographer of Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Malena.” “Semmelweis” marks Koltai’s first return to directing since “Evening” in 2007.

“Semmelweis” is a period biopic about a Hungarian doctor who became known as the “saviour of mothers” for introducing antiseptic procedures at a Vienna maternity clinic.

The film has attracted more than 280,000 moviegoers since its premiere on Nov. 30, and was among the top three movies for nine weeks. It has grossed more than $1.7 million.

Set in 19th century Vienna, the film tells the story of Ignac Semmelweis, the short-tempered but passionate doctor, who delivers babies and also carries out autopsies on a daily basis while looking for the cause of puerperal fever,...

It’s been more than 15 years since Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Lajos Koltai helmed his last film, “Evening” (2007), a poignant meditation on mortality, regret and womanhood that featured a star-studded ensemble cast, including Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close, Eileen Atkins and Meryl Streep, and was released domestically by Focus Features.

For his return to the director’s chair, the Hungarian-born filmmaker also returns closer to home with “Semmelweis,” a period biopic drama about a Hungarian doctor who turns the medical establishment on its head in 19th-century Vienna. The film opens the 21st Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles, which runs Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.

“Semmelweis” is set in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic is raging in a maternity clinic in Vienna. The film follows the Hungarian-born doctor Ignác Semmelweis, played by rising Hungarian actor Miklos H. Vecsei, in a race against the clock to solve the mystery...

As a young boy growing up in Budapest, a town that would come to be known as “Hollywood on the Danube,” Béla Bunyik dreamed of being in the pictures. “I fell in love with movies in Hungary back in the ’50s,” Bunyik tells Variety. “When I was 12 years old, I started to work as an extra in a few movies…. In 1953, I spent a whole summer with a bunch of kids and some of the best Hungarian actors at the time.”

He recalls being picked up after school by talent scouts and cutting his teeth on the sets of films like Viktor Gertler’s 1954 adventure-comedy “Me and My Grandfather.” “Seeing how a movie was done was very exciting for me and I was sad when the summer ended, and the film was shut,” he says. But those formative years sparked a lifelong obsession. “I got hooked.”

Bunyik would later emigrate to the U.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top Hungarian projects in the pipeline or selling at the Cannes Market:

Semmelweis

Director: Lajos Koltai

Producer: Tamas Lajos (Film Positive)

Sales: N/A

Set in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic rages in a maternity clinic in Vienna, this period drama from the Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Koltai (“Malena”) stars promising young thesp Miklos H. Vecsei as the titular doctor Ignác Semmelweis, who spurns traditional medical theories to find a cure.

The Lefkovicses Are in Mourning

Director: Ádám Breier

Producers: Kázmér Miklós, Felszeghy Ádám, Ausztrics Andrea

Sales: N/A

Breier’s feature debut is a dramedy about a generous but stubborn elderly boxing coach who gets along with everyone except his own son. While the two haven’t spoken in years, they’re reunited during after the death of the old man’s wife and forced to face old grievances.

Cat Call

Director:...

Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer, “Ricki and the Flash”

The mother-daughter duo starred in this 2015 film directed by Jonathan Demme.

Demi Moore and Rumer Willis, “Striptease

Actually, this mother-daughter team is a frequent on-screen collaborator. They first appeared together in 1995’s “Now and Then, as well as 1996’s “Striptease.”

Carrie Fisher and Billie Lourd, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”

Billie Lourd starred alongside her late mother Carrie Fisher in “The Last Jedi,” Fisher’s last role before she died. Of course, Fisher reprised her famous role of Princess Leia.

Maureen O’Sullivan and Mia Farrow, “Hannah and Her Sisters”

O’Sullivan and Farrow starred together in the 1986 film, written and directed by Woody Allen, with whom Farrow was in a relationship.

Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri Martino, “That’s My Boy” and “The Banger Sisters”

Another mother-daughter pair that’s in more than one film together, Susan Sarandon and her daughter Eva...

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.

#36 —Lila Ross, an old friend of a dying woman.

John: While Meryl Streep is fiercely protective of her and her family’s privacy, she made no secret about what she got her daughter Mamie Gummer for her 24th birthday: Lajos Koltai’s Evening. Adapted from Susan Minot’s 1998 novel by the author herself, along with writer Michael Cunningham (The Hours), Evening follows Vanessa Redgrave’s Ann, an elderly woman drifting in and out of consciousnesses on her deathbed as she recalls a distant memory from her long-ago youth. That memory stars Claire Danes as a twentysomething Ann on the day of her best friend Lila’s (Mamie Gummer) wedding to a man she does not love. Ann, Lila, and the latter’s brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy) are instead infatuated with Harris (Patrick Wilson), a strapping doctor that each...

A newly restored 4K digital print of István Szabó’s Oscar-winning “Mephisto” will be among the European classics screening as part of the 2nd Budapest Classics Film Marathon, which runs Sept. 4-9. Claudia Cardinale, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Jean-Marc Barr will be among the event’s guests.

The first Marathon ran in November 2017, attracting more than 5,000 people over three days. This year’s edition, which runs over six days and includes the screening of more than 60 films, kicks off with an all-day workshop and conference on digital restoration and film in education, attended by the directors of European film archives. The restored “Mephisto” will screen on the opening evening, attended by Szabó, Brandauer and Lajos Koltai.

György Ráduly, director of the Hungarian National Film Archive, said in a statement: “The aim is to show, in a novel and interesting way, valuable, recently restored classical films that represent a part of...

Uncomfortable as it is to admit, there have been so many mediocre Holocaust movies post-Schindler's List that a certain fatigue has set in.

Exceptions exist, of course — films like Roman Polanski's The Pianist or Lajos Koltai's Fateless, which, through their clarity of vision and lack of sentimentality, force us to see the horror with fresh eyes. But most screen depictions of this defining 20th-century atrocity, no matter their angle, rely on predictable emotional, visual and musical cues to coax the audience toward weepy catharsis (see: Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Book Thief, Woman in...

Laszlo Nemes's debut feature, Son of Saul, "is as grim and unyielding a depiction of the Holocaust as has yet been made," declares Variety's Justin Chang. "Boldly courting the kind of debate about how (or whether) the Nazi death camps should be depicted that dates back at least as far as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985), Son of Saul is likely to draw admiration and outrage alike." For the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw this is "a film with the power of Elem Klimov’s Come and See and perhaps also Lajos Koltai’s Hungarian film Fateless. It also has the severity of Béla Tarr, to whom director Làszlò Nemes was for two years an assistant, but notably without Tarr’s glacial pace: Nemes is clearly concerned at some level to exert the conventional sort of narrative grip which does not interest Tarr." » - David Hudson...

Laszlo Nemes's debut feature, Son of Saul, "is as grim and unyielding a depiction of the Holocaust as has yet been made," declares Variety's Justin Chang. "Boldly courting the kind of debate about how (or whether) the Nazi death camps should be depicted that dates back at least as far as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985), Son of Saul is likely to draw admiration and outrage alike." For the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw this is "a film with the power of Elem Klimov’s Come and See and perhaps also Lajos Koltai’s Hungarian film Fateless. It also has the severity of Béla Tarr, to whom director Làszlò Nemes was for two years an assistant, but notably without Tarr’s glacial pace: Nemes is clearly concerned at some level to exert the conventional sort of narrative grip which does not interest Tarr." » - David Hudson...

This astonishing debut film, about a prisoner in the concentration camp employed in the industrial processes of body disposal, is a horror movie of extraordinary focus and courage

A season in hell is what this devastating and terrifying film offers – as well as an occasion for meditating on representations of the Holocaust, on Wittgenstein’s dictum about matters whereof we cannot speak, and on whether these unimaginable and unthinkable horrors can or even should be made imaginable and thinkable in a drama. There is an argument that any such work, however serious its moral intentions, risks looking obtuse or diminishing its subject, although this is not a charge that can be levelled at Son of Saul.

By any standards, this would be an outstanding film, but for a debut it is remarkable. Director László Nemes’s film has the power of Elem Klimov’s Come and See – which surely inspired...

Meryl Streep, J. Roy Helland Meryl Streep and J. Roy Helland toast their respective Oscar wins at the Governors Ball following the 84th Academy Awards held at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Hollywood on Sunday, February 26, 2012. After thanking husband Don Gummer in her acceptance speech, Streep expressed her joy that her "other partner," makeup artist Helland, had finally won an Academy Award (shared with Mark Coulier). Both Streep and Helland were honored for their work on Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady. (Photo: Darren Decker / © A.M.P.A.S.) Helland has been working Streep since Alan J. Pakula's Sophie's Choice, the movie that earned the veteran actress her first Best Actress Oscar back in early 1983. Among his other movies with Streep are Robert Benton's Still of the Night, Mike Nichols' Silkwood, Ulu Grosbard's Falling in Love, Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa, Nichols' Heartburn,...

Glenn Close's publicists must have been working round the clock these last few months. A highly likely Best Actress Oscar contender for her performance in Albert Nobbs, Close has already received the San Sebastian International Film Festival's Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award and, a couple of days ago, the Hollywood Film Festival's Hollywood Career Achievement Award. Now comes the announcement that Close will be taking home another Career Achievement Award, this time at the Palm Springs International Film Festival's awards gala ceremony on January 7, 2012, at the Palm Springs Convention Center. In Albert Nobbs, Close plays a 19th-century Irishwoman who passes as a (strange-looking) man in order to eke out a living in those difficult times. In the past, the Academy has often shown a penchant for cross-dressing actors, e.g., Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot, Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, John Lithgow The World According to Garp,...

Academy Award Winner Jeremy Irons will appear alongside Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall in Lajos Koltai’s The Treehouse, a pre World War I story located in Berlin, according to The Hollywood Reporter

The film details “the story of a failed student, his glamorous cousin, her mother and the student’s father.”

Maybe it’s just me but the film might have sparked more intrigue if it had actually been titled “The Failed Student, his glamorous cousin, her mother and the student’s father” in what could have been a knowing homage to Peter Greenaway’s brilliantly odd love story “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.”

The screen pairing of Irons & Cattrall may seem rather odd especially given that the former is a serious character actor whereas the latter is known largely for light comedic offerings both on film and television. Cattrall impressed many however...

What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 30 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might've missed that you think should go in /Film's Page 2 - email us [1]! Katie Cook [2] created this cute Star Wars-themed Valentine's Day card. [geektyrant [3]] StarWars.com [4] has a great compilation of Star Wars-related Valentine's Day festivities around the web. Watch David OReilly's (who created the animated sequences in Son of Rambow) award winning short film The External World, which premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and played at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. [ultraculture [5]] Black and Blue Films Gearing up for a movie titled Strippers vs Werewolves. Best title since Alien vs.

Jeremy Irons, Tom Sturridge and Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) have been confirmed as leads for the $7.5m production which is set to begin shooting at locations in Germany and Poland from May 2.

Us producer Michael London’s Groundswell Production has boarded Lajos Koltai’s next feature film The Treehouse (The Master of Farnow) which is being produced by Hamburg-based Transcorda Filmproduktion.

A time-honored story is set among an noble family on a Pomeranian estate in 1910. Paul Mayerberg adapted from Eduard von Keyserling’s novel “Schwüle Tage.” The novel follows a failed student, his glamorous cousin and family, and is set in pre-wwi Germany.

The director of photography on the movie will be Hungarian Gyula Pados who had also worked on Koltai’s Evening and Fateless, while production design will be controled by Academy Award winner Allan Starski. The score will be composed by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Costume design is by Anne Sheppard,...

Well, here's an interesting trio of thesps who will be stepping into a period pic. THR reports that Jeremy Irons, Kim Cattrall and Tom Sturridge are set to star in "The Treehouse" directed by Lajos Koltai, a longtime cinematographer and sometimes helmer whose last effort was drama "Evening" which no one saw (though a middle of summer release date didn't help that film either). Based on the novel by Eduard von Keyserling, the film will tell the story of "a failed student, his glamorous cousin, her mother and the student's father" in pre-wwi Germany. No word yet on who will…...

Jeremy Irons, Kim Cattrall and Tom Sturridge have joined $10 million thriller "The Treehouse" for Transcorda Filmproduktion and Groundswell Productions says The Hollywood Reporter

Based on the novel by Eduard von Keyserling and adapted by Paul Mayersberg, the story is set in pre-World War I Germany detailing the story of a failed student, his glamorous cousin, her mother and the student's father.

The project was originally titled "The Master of Farnow". Lajos Koltai is set to direct.

'Song for a Raggy Boy' co-writer and co-producer, Kevin Byron Murphy is currently working on two upcoming projects. Through his production company, Titian Red Pictures, the filmmaker is to shoot two films next year, 'Reconstruction of Warriors' with Oscar nominated director, Lajos Koltai (Malèna) and actors Topher Grace and Ashley Judd, and a new Northern Irish drama, 'Paperboy'. Iftn spoke to him about the upcoming films, the use of beer for holistic purposes and giving Northern Irish drama a positive spin... Cameras will roll next April of the set of 'Reconstruction of Warriors', a feature film from Irish screenwriter Kevin Byron Murphy which will look at the work of New Zealand plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe.

Jeremy Irons is gearing up to show people who's literally the boss as he signs onto the cast of "Margin Call". The J.C. Chandor film as of now has Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci and Paul Bettany on the cast. The drama centers on several key people in an investment bank during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.Irons will be playing the role of an chief executive from the company, and there's not much more on his role other than that. Benaroya and Before the Door Pictures are fixed onto producing this feature that's within it's third week of principal photography. The only other project Irons is tied to at the moment is "The Master of Farnow", a romance drama directed by Lajos Koltai.Oh come on, they make films out of anything nowadays, you knew something like this was going to eventually happen.

Paired with Brady Corbet in Alistair Banks Griffin's Two Gates of Sleep, David Call is contained to a mute role but the very physical performance demanded for the part of Louis and one harrowing scene in particular is likely to land the actor further parts. - #7. David Call Paired with Brady Corbet in Alistair Banks Griffin's Two Gates of Sleep, David Call is contained to a mute role but the very physical performance demanded for the part of Louis and one harrowing scene in particular is likely to land the actor further parts. With bit parts in Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page, Lajos Koltai's Evening and Daryl Wein's Breaking Upwards, Call isn't exactly a newbie in the industry, but with television face time and a meatier part in another U.S indie title: Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, this is his official breakout year.

#7. David Call Paired with Brady Corbet in Alistair Banks Griffin's Two Gates of Sleep, David Call is contained to a mute role but the very physical performance demanded for the part of Louis and one harrowing scene in particular is likely to land the actor further parts. With bit parts in Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page, Lajos Koltai's Evening and Daryl Wein's Breaking Upwards, Call isn't exactly a newbie in the industry, but with television face time and a meatier part in another U.S indie title: Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, this is his official breakout year.   ...

The jury's out

Trash had the pleasure of being on the Bafta jury to decide this year's Orange Rising Star Award nominees. It was an impressively intense process, whittling down 117 candidates until 18 remained. These were then vigorously debated: is being in Twilight a good or bad thing? Do we count debuts or only those with growing bodies of work? Will the voting public recognise a foreign actor if we put one forward? Anyway, our votes are now in for the final five nominees who'll be announced on 12 January, sparking a public vote via www.orange.co.uk/bafta. Current holder Noel Clarke is on the jury this year and is in no doubt how much of a boost the Orsa gave him last year. "In terms of recognition and respect within the industry, it's amazing how much it does for you," he told me. "A whole new public saw me winning,...

New York -- Lajos Koltai has come on board to helm "Spider Dance," a period drama set in 19th century Australia.

The director fills a spot that had previously been mentioned for "Duchess" director Saul Dibb, who had been presented as attached to the project as it was shopped around town.

"Spider Dance" is a period story about an American woman's colorful exploits Down Under.

Peter Sumner wrote the screenplay for the indie drama, which Robert Roworth and U.K.-based Leo Media Group are producing. Producers are out to cast, with veteran British actor John Rhys-Davies already on board.

The project centers on a young American who arrives in a repressed part of Sydney with an extensive entourage of actors and other celebrities in tow and proceeds to shock the locals with her uninhibited ways. The film also traces the arc of the woman's addictions and romantic pursuits.

Koltai,...

April Showers evenings @ 11 all month long

I like to think that this is the only part of the horrifically vile Irreversible (2002). It's a short film about sweet lovemaking and the marital bliss of one of cinema's sexiest couples, Monica Bellucci & Vincent Cassel. That's it, a beautiful short film!!! I pretend whenever possible that the rest of the movie did not attempt to show itself to me.

Tangent: Shower curtains in movies are always so sparkly clean. No mold, no stains, nothing. You can totally kiss through them without once thinking 'god, i totally need to clean this bathroom!' ...hypothetically speaking. My bathroom is impeccable. Um...

Occasionally my pretending fails me. I recognizable the structural potency (to an extent) of Irréversible but I will never ever ever ever ever subject myself to it again. Never ever.

Weirdly, I have never seen any of the other collaborations between the Bellucci-Cassels (and...

Berlin -- Bernd Hellthaler has resigned from EuroArts Medien, the Berlin company he founded in 1994 and built into one of the world’s leading producers of classic music and fine arts programming.

Some of the company’s best known work was done as co-productions, including the Grammy-nominated documentary “Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz (1997)”.

EuroArts also co-produced several feature films, including Kenneth Glenaan’s “Yasmin” (2004), “Don’t Come Knocking” (2005) from Wim Wenders and Lajos Koltai’s “Fateless” (2005).

Hellthaler cited unspecified “personal reasons” for his exit. He will continue to advise the company and its corporate parent Medici Arts, which acquired EuroArts in 2004.

AMSTERDAM -- Croatian director Rajko Grlic won the top prize Monday at the ninth edition of Film by the Sea, a Dutch festival dedicated to film adaptations of novels.

Grlic won the award for "Border Post", a feature adaptation of the Ante Tomic novel "No One Will Surprise Us". The story deals with the threat of an Albanian invasion in Yugoslavia.

This year's Film by the Sea competition lineup offered nine screen adaptations: "Atonement" by Joe Wright, "Away From Her" by Sarah Polley, "Border Post", "Emma's Bliss" by Sven Taddicken, "Evening" by Lajos Koltai, "Gone Baby Gone" by Ben Affleck, "I Served the King of England" by Jiri Menzel, "La Caja" by Juan Carlos Falcon and "Opium" by Janos Szasz.

During the festival, held in the Dutch coastal town of Vlissingen, German director Volker Schlondorff received a life achievement award.

In Evening, an all-star team of filmmakers takes on a minor-league story. The cast and crew here include multiple Oscar winners and nominees, a Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter, and a director, a much-honored cinematographer who collaborated with a Nobel Prize-winning author no less for his first film. Alas, the thing they all choose to labor over is a thin, overwrought tale of New England bluebloods wallowing in self-perpetuated angst and recriminations. At the end of the movie, everyone decides to get over it. Wow, that's a relief.

The film will gain traction with older women for all the mother-daughter interplay that pushes emotional buttons without ever saying anything significant. A cast of truly impressive actresses spanning the decades -- Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Eileen Atkins, Glenn Close as well as real-life mother-daughters Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson and Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer -- will undoubtedly draw a goodly share of the curious as well. Boxoffice for this Focus Feature release should still be modest.

The package is certainly appealing. Budapest-born director Lajos Koltai (the Oscar-nominated Hungarian feature Fateless) cuts between two visually appealing settings: a high-society wedding on an awesome seacliff home in Newport, R.I., and the final days of the maid of honor from the wedding, a half-century later, in a lovely art and memorabilia-filled Rhode Island residence.

It is in the latter setting that Ann Lord (Redgrave) is dying. She is (barely) comforted by two daughters, a happily situated mother and wife, Constance (Richardson), and her restive sister, Nina (Collette). The flashbacks to the weekend wedding of 50 years earlier -- where all the movie's action is -- take place in the dying woman's mind.

As these events, as fresh as if they were yesterday, churn over in her mind, what they tell her about life and the mistakes people make is meant to hugely impact Nina's current dilemma. Nina is in a shaky three-year-old relationship and, secretly pregnant, is uncertain what to do. But because the daughter can't see the mother's flashbacks or hallucinations, how this message gets across is a mystery.

In her memories, the young Ann (Danes) finds the bride-to-be, Lila Wittenborn (Gummer), in a state. Her engagement is a sham since her true love is longtime family friend and intimate Harris Arden (Patrick Wilson). Within moments, Ann herself falls under Harris' spell. He is destined to become the "man that got away" for both young women.

In her waning moments, it is her obsession with Harris that dominates her thoughts. Harris apparently is a sexual magnet: Before that long-ago weekend concludes, the bride's alcoholic brother and Ann's dear friend, Buddy (Hugh Dancy), makes a pass at her and at Harris!

For some reason, the whole movie and therefore the dying woman's memories focus on that wedding rather than subsequent loves, marriages and daughters. So when she looks back on a life of "waste and failure," you can't judge. What happened afterward in her life is what matters, not that brief fling and a tragic event that forever marred the wedding.

The whole thing is a stacked deck of cards that the director and his writers, Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham (The Hours), who adapted Minot's novel, deal with so selectively as to deny us knowledge of essential points about many of the relationships and motives.

Possibly too much has been removed from the source material. Occasional bits of magic realism indicate other means of attack in the novel: Ann's night nurse (Atkins), for example, turns into an angel of mercy/fairy godmother who knows Ann's whole past and hints at alternative views about the supposed waste and failure. We'd also like to know much more about the bride's curiously aloof parents (Barry Bostwick and Close).

Nevertheless, we must be grateful to any film with such glorious actresses still at the top of their game, including Streep, who turns up briefly as Lila the Elder.

Evening itself reps a master's course in how to make do on a limited budget, a fabulous cast and Rhode Island's generous tax incentives for filmmakers.

EVENING

Focus Features

A Hart Sharp Entertainment production

Credits:

Director: Lajos Koltai

Screenwriters: Susan Minot, Michael Cunningham

Based on the novel by: Susan Minot

Producer: Jeffrey Sharp

Executive producers: Jill Footlick, Michael Hogan, Robert Kessel, Susan Minot, Michael Cunningham

Director of photography: Gyula Pados

Production designer: Caroline Hanania

Co-producers: Luke Parker Bowles, Claire Taylor, Nina Wolarsky

Costume designer: Ann Roth, Michelle Matland

Editor: Allyson C. Johnson

Cast:

Ann Grant: Claire Danes

Nina Mars: Toni Collette

Ann Lord: Vanessa Redgrave

Harris Arden: Patrick Wilson

Budd Wittenborn: Hugh Dancy

Constance Haverford: Natasha Richardson

Lila Wittenborn: Mamie Gummer

Night Nurse: Eileen Atkins

Lila Ross: Meryl Streep

Mrs. Wittenborn: Glenn Close

Running time -- 117 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...

• Ioncinema.com presents: Best of FestsNEWPORT Film FESTIVALWhen: June 5 to 10, 2007 Counting Down: updateCountdownClock('June 5, 2007'); Where: Newport, Rhode Island U.S. Official Website: http://www.newportfilmfestival.com/2007/default.aspWhat: The Newport International Film Festival (Niff) was founded in 1998 by Christine Schomer, Nancy Donahoe and Pami Shamir. Co-founders Nancy Donahoes & Christine Schomer, circa 1998. In 10 years, Niff has grown dramatically into one of America's leading regional film festivals. The Festival, which critics have called a "low key Cannes," has a reputation for stellar programming and has cemented its status as one of the most exciting and exclusive festivals of its kind. Annually attracting over 10,000 filmmakers, celebrities, journalists, and film enthusiasts of all kinds together in a less frenzied, less commercial, and more intimate environment, the Festival has distinguished itself as one where art ranks before commerce. Sections: Tba Awards: Tba Samples: Evening - Lajos Koltai Winners: Tba...

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NEW YORK -- The 12th annual Nantucket Film Festival revealed its full lineup of films and programs Monday, with 30 features and 20 shorts on the schedule for the event, which is set to run June 13-17. Included on the schedule is a storytelling session featuring Anne Meara and Peter Farrelly and the Iconoclasts event featuring William Monahan, this year's Oscar winner for best adapted screenplay for the The Departed, and Rachel Grady, nominated for a best documentary Oscar for 2006's Jesus Camp. Also, Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer), the recipient of the festival's NBC Universal Screenwriting Award, will be interviewed by film critic Janet Maslin. The previously announced opening-night film will be Lajos Koltai's Evening, starring Meryl Streep, Claire Danes and Toni Collette and presented by Ralph Lauren. The closing-night film will be Jeffrey Blitz's Rocket Science. Also announced previously was the new Adrienne Shelly Excellence in Filmmaking Award, which will go to the outstanding female writer-director at the festival.

LAS VEGAS -- The recent success of independent cinema in the commercial marketplace owes as much to the exhibition community as it does to the quality of the films themselves, according to a group of key indie players who took part in a ShoWest panel Wednesday afternoon.

The seminar, titled "Independent Film Takes Center Stage," featured actors Jennifer Lopez, who produced and stars in the upcoming film El Cantante; the film's director, Leon Ichaso; David Duchovny and Judy Greer, who both star in the new comedy The TV Set; and executives including Picturehouse's Bob Berney, ThinkFilm's Mark Urman, Focus Features' Jack Foley and the Yari Film Group's Bob Yari.

The Hollywood Reporter film editor Gregg Kilday served as moderator for the session, which took place at the Paris hotel.

Throughout the wide-ranging, hour-plus conversation, the panelists agreed that independently made productions continue to face significant challenges -- namely, securing financing and distribution, then finding a way to compete against bigger-budgeted studio films and their customary multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns. But the panelists also said that today's independent films are no longer ghettoized the way they once were and that exhibitors across the country now seek out any kind of product that can successfully appeal to audiences.

"Exhibitors get these films better than they ever have," Foley said, adding that theater owners are crucial partners when it comes to releasing movies like the specialty distributor's upcoming drama Evening from director Lajos Koltai and the Ralph Waldo Petey Greene biopic Talk to Me, starring Don Cheadle as the revolutionary 1960s radio personality.

• Quick Links > Evening > Lajos Koltai > Focus Features > Patrick Wilson Little Children Hard Candy Patrick Wilson, star of the upcoming films Little Children and Running with Scissors, is now attached to the next project from Focus Features - Evening, the bigscreen adaptation of Susan Minot's bestselling novel. Evening tells the story of Ann Lord (Vanessa Redgrave/Claire Danes), a sixty-five-year-old woman diagnosed with terminal cancer. The film follows Ann's retreat into her past as she remembers the love of her life, while also focusing on her two daughters as they cope with their mother's impending death. The film will be directed by Lajos Koltai and has been adapted by Minot and Michael Cunningham. Starring alongside Wilson is Toni Collette and Hugh Dancy. A fan of Wilson's since "Angels in America" and a follower of his work after Hard Candy, I can't decide which film I'm more excited to see - Purple Violets or Evening.

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Lajos Koltai is in final negotiations to direct the screen adaptation of Susan Minot's best-selling novel Evening for Focus Features and Hart Sharp Entertainment. Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours) adapted the story of a woman, reflecting back on one weekend in her youth when she met the love of her life, as her two daughters try to come to terms with the mother's impending death while struggling with their own personal issues. Evening is the first English-language film to be directed by Hungarian filmmaker Koltai. The former cinematographer -- Oscar-nominated in 2001 for lensing Malena -- most recently directed Fateless, a historical drama based on Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz's novel about Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Fateless was Hungary's submission to this year's Academy Awards.

MOSCOW -- Holocaust drama "Sorstalansag" (Fateless), the directorial debut by cinematographer Lajos Koltai, will represent Hungary in the race for a best foreign-language film nomination at next year's Oscars, national film body Magyar Filmunio announced Thursday. The movie, based on Imre Kertesz's 2003 Nobel prize-winning novel about a young Jewish boy struggling to survive in the Buchenwald concentration camp, was chosen by a selection committee made up of producers, directors and cinematographers.

Indie distributor THINKFilm announced Tuesday that it has acquired all North American rights to Fateless, the adaptation of the novel by Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz that premiered in competition at the recent Berlin Film Festival. The film marks the directorial debut of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Lajos Koltai, and comes from a screenplay by Kertesz. The film, a semi-autobiographical tale of a 14-year old Jewish boy from Budapest who finds himself swept up in Hitler's Final Solution policy, has become a boxoffice sensation in its native Hungary.

BERLIN -- Fateless, the directorial debut of Hungarian cinematographer Lajos Koltai (Malena) was added as a last-minute Competition entry at this year's Berlin International Film Festival Wednesday. The film is based on the life of Hungarian Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz and portrays his experience of the Holocaust as an adolescent. Kertesz wrote the screenplay for Fateless, adapting his autobiography of the same name. The film stars Marcell Nagy, Aron Dimeny and Andras M. Kecskes and features music composed by Ennio Morricone. "We are happy that we could still include the film at this very last moment," Berlin festival director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement. Fateless will have its international premiere at the fest on Feb.15. It will replace Chris Terrio's drama Heights which has been withdrawn from the Berlin Competition lineup. The 55th Berlin International Film Festival runs Feb. 10-20.

Fox's other nautical summer release finds those grumpy old men definitely up to speed.

In "Out to Sea", old pros Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau show why they're one of the screen's most enduring comedy teams, elevating would could have been "Love Boat: The Movie" to an amusing romp that ranks as the most satisfying of their recent pairings.

Of course, they get some able assist here from an all-AARP ensemble, including Donald O'Connor, Gloria DeHaven, Elaine Stritch, Dyan Cannon and the late Edward Mulhare, as well as some nimble direction from Martha Coolidge.

Boxoffice-wise, this throwback of a romantic comedy should experience exceptionally smooth sailing.

This time around, Matthau is Charlie, a compulsive gambler (talk about playing it close to home) whose less-than-winning ways at the racetrack have definitely put a strain on his relationship with his bookie. Undaunted, he comes up with a new can't-miss scheme -- talking skeptical brother-in-law Herb (Lemmon) into joining him on a Caribbean cruise where the promise of lonely, wealthy women could solve his little cash flow problem.

What he has failed to inform Herb is that he has volunteered both of them as dance hosts in order to gain free passage, his two left feet notwithstanding. Twinkle-toes Herb ends up having to do all the work, as Charlie woos the very eligible Liz LaBreche (Cannon) while trying to avoid the highly suspicious gaze of cruise director Gil Godwyn (Brent Spiner).

To further complicate matters, devout widower Herb has unwittingly found romance with Vivian (a glorious DeHaven), a former publisher who has been "shanghaied" by her well-meaning daughter and new son-in-law.

It's refreshing to see so many actors of a certain age working together and so effectively in the same movie. Having performed with each other on-and-off for over 30 years, Matthau and Lemmon have developed a terrific shorthand that translates into funny even when tyro Robert Nelson Jacobs' workable script isn't always up to snuff.

It also doesn't hurt to have O'Connor on board as a legitimate dance host (he naturally doesn't get away without strutting some of his famous stuff) or Stritch as Cannon's terminally feisty, gold-digging mom. Also doing fine work are DeHaven, Spiner, Rue McClanahan as the ship's owner and Mulhare (in his last screen appearance) as Matthau's suave, high-stakes nemesis.

Serving as navigator, Coolidge gives everyone a chance to shine, while adeptly giving just the right weight to both the comedic and heartfelt moments. It's a tricky balancing act that, save for a few rough patches, succeeds admirably.

As a double added bonus, the end credits feature the various cast members in a very funny interpretive dance sequence, plus those ever-popular outtakes accompanied by a number of well-placed bleeps preserving that PG-13 rating.

OUT TO SEA

20th Century Fox

A Davis Entertainment Co. production

A Martha Coolidge film

Director Martha Coolidge

Producers John Davis, David T. Friendly

Screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs

Executive producers Dylan Sellers, Barry Berg

Director of photography Lajos Koltai

Production designer James Spencer

Editor Anne V. Coates

Music David Newman

Costume designer Jane Robinson

Casting Jackie Burch

Color/stereo

Cast:

Herb Jack Lemmon

Charlie Walter Matthau

Liz Dyan Cannon

Vivian Gloria DeHaven

Godwyn Brent Spiner

Mavis:Elaine Stritch

Mac Hal Linden

Jonathan Donald O'Connor

Carswell Edward Mulhare

Shelly Rue McClanahan

Running time -- 106 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...

Old age makes for strange pairings. In this case, an unlikely friendship forms between two elderly men who, at the end of their lives, find themselves beached at a small Flordia town. With terrific lead performances from Robert Duvall and Richard Harris as the dissimilar gents, "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway'' will win some praise on the select-site circuit and likely become a matinee winner among senior citizens.

Walter (Duvall) and Frank (Harris) have nothing in common except for gnawing loneliness. Both are alone: careful Walter, a Cuban emigre, never married and tended all his waking hours to his barbershop, while old salt Frank, among his harbor-town escapades, snared four wives -- none of them now even remotely on his empty horizon. The men fill their days in the void of the coastal town with Walter pining for a much younger waitress at a local diner and Frank railing against the coming of the night with a series of inappropriate advances to the local womenfolk, most notably his divorcee apartment manager (Shirley MacLaine) and a perfidious matron who patronizes the local cinema house (Piper Laurie).

Screenwriter Steve Conrad's tale of their criss-crossed lives, when each has come to the end of his days, is a tenderly scratchy tale. The unlikely friendship between the methodical, reserved Walter and the impetuous, brazen Frank is a bracing insight into the self-preserving nature of the human spirit.

Although director Randa Haines intermittently softens their hard-crusted edges with adoring reaction shots and the musical score consistently overpumps schmaltzy strains into the harder moments of the story, Haines' direction is caringly realized. Utilizing cinematographer Lajos Koltai's sensitive eye, the compositions are spry and gentle. Koltai's smudgy skyscapes, with their vital glints, nicely capture the situation of this emerging, life-giving friendship.

The film's most outstanding feature lies with the performances. Duvall's fidgety depiction of the painfully restrained Walter is a marvel. His compulsive mannerisms and darting, shy glances show us the inner workings of a decent man shackled by his own rigidity. As the rapscallion, womanizing Frank, Harris is a terrific old coot, full of daring-do and deviltry. Harris' leathery performance also conveys the deep pain of this singular, and solitary man.

Supporting performances are solid, including Laurie as the proper object of Frank's affections and MacLaine as his take-no-guff apartment manager.

WRESTLING ENREST HEMINGWAY

Warner Bros.

A Joe Wizan/Todd Black Production

A Randa Haines Film

Producers Todd Black, Joe Wizan

Director Randa Haines

Screenwriter Steve Conrad

Director of photography Lajos Koltai

Production designer Waldemar Kalinowski

Editor Paul Hirsch

Costume designer Joe I. Tompkins

Music Michael Convertino

Co-producer Jim Van Wyck

Casting Lora Kennedy

Sound mixer Michael R. Tromer

Color/stereo

Cast:

Walt Robert Duvall

Frank Richard Harris

Helen Shirley MacLaine

Elaine Sandra Bullock

Bernice Micole Mercurio

Ned Ryan Marty Belafsky

Georgia Piper Laurie

Running time -- 122 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...