News

Franca Bettoia, the Italian actress who starred opposite Vincent Price in the 1964 cult sci-fi film The Last Man on Earth, has died in Rome, her family told the Italian news agency Adnkronos. She was 88.

Bettoia was married to Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi — he starred in the 1978 movie La Cage aux Folles in the part played by Robin Williams in Mike Nichols’ 1996 adaptation The Birdcage — from 1972 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1990 at age 68.

In The Last Man on Earth, directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, Bettoia portrays Ruth, a woman who, with the help of Price’s Dr. Robert Morgan, is fending off the effects of a plague that has turned humans into vampiric creatures.

Filmed in Rome, produced by Robert L. Lippert and distributed by American International Pictures, the movie was based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend. The author then co-wrote the screenplay credited as Logan Swanson.

Directorial duo Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”) tell the true tale of Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro – who was dubbed “the last godfather” – in their new drama “Sicilian Letters,” launching on Thursday from the Venice Film Festival.

“Sicilian Letters” pairs two top Italian actors — Elio Germano, who plays Messina, and Toni Servillo as his antagonist Catello, a shady secret services operative who is trying to catch him — working in tandem for the first time. The title refers to a surreptitious correspondence between them using “pizzini,” small slips of paper that the Sicilian Mafia used for high-level communications.

The film looks at a time during Denaro’s three decades as a fugitive from Italian justice, when he was at the peak of his nefarious powers. After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where...

France’s Les Films du Losange is taking international sales outside Italy on “Sicilian Letters” (“Iddu”), the hotly anticipated drama about Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro – who was dubbed “the last godfather” – directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”).

“Sicilian Letters” pairs two top Italian actors — Elio Germano, who plays Messina (see first-look image above) and Toni Servillo (first-look image below) as his antagonist Catello, a shady secret services operative — working in tandem for the first time. The title refers to a surreptitious correspondence between them using “pizzini,” the small slips of paper that the Sicilian Mafia uses for high-level communications.

The film – which is expected to launch on the fall festival circuit – looks at a time during Denaro’s three decades as a fugitive from Italian justice, when he was at the peak of his nefarious powers. After being on the run for three decades,...

The Janus-headed The Facts of Murder looks back to the earlier neorealist docudramas of director, co-writer, and star Pietro Germi, while also presaging the sharply observed satirical outlook of films like Divorce Italian Style and Seduced and Abandoned. In the film, the comedic elements are mostly limited to the broad, almost caricatural handling of bumbling secondary characters. The primary storyline, involving an investigation into two ostensibly related crimes, is handled more like a police procedural along the lines of Jules Dassin’s The Naked City, albeit without that film’s authoritative narration.

The Facts of Murder’s central location is an apartment block. Quickly sketching in a number of characters and their relationships in the aftermath of the opening burglary, the film codes the victim, Commendatore Anzaloni (Ildebrando Santafe), as gay, and it’s suggested that the criminal might’ve been one of his pickups. But the focus of...

In keeping with tradition, the 2023 edition of Cannes Classics promises to be a feast for cineastes with tributes to global masters and restored versions of all-time classics.

Cannes Classics’ Memories of Jean-Luc Godard strand pays homage to the master who died in 2022 by screening a restored version of “Contempt” (1963); “Godard by Godard,” a self-portrait of the auteur; and the world premiere of “Phony Wars,” a trailer for a film that will never get made, described by the festival as a venture where the filmmaker “transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs.”

Liv Ullman will be present at the strand with “Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled,” a documentary directed by Dheeraj Akolkar.

Japanese master Ozu Yasujiro will be paid tribute to with screenings of “Record of a Tenement Gentleman” (1947) and “The Munekata Sisters” (1950) off restored prints. “Return to Reason” – where four films of painter, photographer and director Man Ray have been...

Luigi Comenicini’s The Sunday Woman makes for an intriguing blend of police procedural and comedy of manners. It isn’t really a giallo, despite an investigation into a bizarre murder that fuels further misdeeds. As a satire of Turin’s upper classes, it isn’t nearly as trenchant, let alone grim, as other examples of commedia all’italiana like Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso or Pietro Germi’s Seduced and Abandoned, though it does share their preoccupation with character types that border on the grotesque. Taken on its own terms, the film is absorbing, frequently amusing, and exceedingly well directed by Comencini, who keeps things moving with admirably brisk efficiency.

When sleazy architect Garrone (Claudio Gora) is found beaten to death with a large stone phallus (shades of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), Commissioner Santamaria (Marcello Mastroianni) takes up the case. A handy clue soon puts him on...

It was an epic night for the Academy, with now-classic films and performances in competition, an anomaly between Best Picture and Best Director nominations, a young actress redefining the acting categories and the culmination of a decades-long feud. Let’s flashback to when first-time host Frank Sinatra guided the 35th Academy Awards ceremony on April 8, 1963.

In the years of the Best Picture category being limited to five films, the Best Director category typically fell in line with those productions, with maybe one variation. In 1963, only two directors from Best Picture nominees received bids; unsurprisingly, those two films also had the most nominations and the most wins. David Lean‘s sprawling epic biopic “Lawrence of Arabia” led the pack, coming into the night with ten bids and leaving with seven statues, including Best Picture and Lean’s second career win for Best Director. It has the unusual distinction of being the...

Claudia Squitieri with Manuel Maria Perrone at the Italian Cultural Institute book launch for Claudia Cardinale. L’indomabile. The Indomitable (Cinecittà and Electa Editore) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Luigi Comencini's La Ragazza Di Bube opened Cinecittà and the Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective celebrating Claudia Cardinale on Friday. Pietro Germi’s Un Maledetto Imbroglio; Mauro Bolognini’s Il Bell’Antonio, La Viaccia, and Senilità; Valerio Zurlini’s La Ragazza Con La Valigia; Luchino Visconti’s Rocco E I Suoi Fratelli, Il Gattopardo Sandra (1965); Federico Fellini’s Otto E Mezzo; Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (1968); Marco Bellocchio’s Enrico IV; Pasquale Squitieri’s Atto Di Dolore (1990), and Manoel de Oliveira’s O Gebo E A Sombra are some of the many highlights.

Claudia Squitieri with Anne-Katrin Titze on Claudia Cardinale shooting The Leopard and 81/2 at the same time: “Visconti wanted her hair very dark and not...

Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.

The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.

A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.

Read More: Evel Knievel’s Son Robbie Dies At Age 60 After Pancreatic Cancer Battle

“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making...

When the 2020 Oscar for original screenplay went to South Korea’s “Parasite” scribes, some were surprised, but they should not have been; the Academy has long been open to foreign-language contenders in all categories. As early as 1947, when the writing categories were a bit different, the Italian screenwriters Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini nabbed a nomination for “Open City,” as did French scribe Jacques Prévert for “Children of Paradise.”

While during the 1940s and 1950s, barely a handful of foreign-language films reached the nomination stage for writing awards, by the 1960s, every year saw at least one non-English-speaking nominee, and some years, a whopping three. 1962 marked the first Oscar win for international scribes, with Ennio de Concini, Alfredo Gianetti and Pietro Germi claiming it for “Divorce Italian Style.” And in 1966, French screenwriters Claude Lelouch and Pierre Uytterhoeven nabbed a statuette for “A Man and a Woman.”

Although foreign-language writers continued...

Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro has come to Saudi Arabia for the first time to serve on the jury panel for the works-in-progress showcase at the Red Sea Film Festival’s industry section, the Red Sea Souk. A former head of the Venice Critics’ Week, Nazzaro has been tracking Arabic cinema for a while and programming pics that are breaking its mold. He spoke to Variety about the challenges directors from the region face as they try to do new things.

My impression is that Arab directors these days are less beholden to an auteur vision of cinema. Do you agree?

This is something that has been going on for quite some time. The fact is there has been a great change of paradigm within cinema from the Arab world and from the Mena region at large. This is largely because institutions such as the Doha Film Institute...

Italian producer Massimo Cristaldi, who as a production manager worked with masters such as Federico Fellini and Francesco Rosi before setting up his own company and shepherding films including prizewinning drama “Sicilian Ghost Story,” has died. He was 66.

Cristaldi’s death was announced over the weekend by his Rome-based company Cristaldi Pictures in a statement that did not specify the cause.

Born in 1956, Massimo Cristaldi was the only son of prominent producer Franco Cristaldi, the triple Oscar-winner who made Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style,” Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso.”

In 1974 Massimo Cristaldi started cutting his teeth in the film business first as a production assistant and eventually, starting in the 1980s, becoming a line producer on many of his father’s productions, working with Fellini, Rosi, Tornatore, and many other Italian cinema greats.

After Franco Cristaldi’s death in 1992, he took over management of...

The public considers the Academy Awards as a Hollywood event. True, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is headquartered in Southern California, and most of the best pic contenders are American and/or in the English language. But Oscar history proves they have been an international event from the beginning.

In the first year (1927-28), there were nominations for directors Herbert Brenon (born in Ireland) and Lewis Milestone (born in Moldova), plus a special award to Charlie Chaplin (from the U.K.).

The next five years saw two noms apiece for directors Ernst Lubitsch (Germany) and Josef von Sternberg (Austria). And the second best actress Academy Award was given to Canadian Mary Pickford.

The early years of Oscar featured a slew of non-Americans. Aside from mega-star Chaplin, the list of early Academy Award winners includes Emil Jannings, George Arliss (U.K.), Claudette Colbert (raised in the U.S. but...

Writer/director/actor Jim Cummings joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Thunder Road short film (2016)

Thunder Road (2018)

The Wolf Of Snow Hollow (2020)

The Beta Test (2021)

Jack Reacher (2012)

The ’Burbs (1989) – Ti West’s trailer commentary, Burbs-Mania from Tfh

Big (1988)

War Of The Worlds (2005) – Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review

Psycho (1960) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Children Of Men (2006)

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002)

Russian Ark (2002) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Beach (2000)

Titanic (1997)

28 Days Later (2003)

Victoria (2015) – Eduardo Rodriguez’s trailer commentary

Krisha (2015)

Dogtooth (2009)

Inside Out (2015)

Toy Story (1995)

Finding Nemo (2003)

Wall-e (2008)

Up (2009)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Oren Peli’s trailer commentary

False Positive (2021)

Repulsion (1965) – Michael Lehman’s trailer commentary

Seduced And Abandoned (1964)

Divorce Italian Style (1961)

La Dolce Vita (1960) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

My Beautiful Girl, Mari (2002)

Speed Racer...

While Netflix is far from being a haven for admirers of classic cinema, they thankfully are backing strong repertory programming in New York City. After acquiring The Paris Theater, located on 58th Street in Manhattan, and briefly reopening with some runs of Netflix features and other specialty programming, they are now officially opening their doors again on August 6 with a more substantial slate of classic cinema.

Featuring two programs, one curated by Radha Blank and another by the theater’s programmer David Schwartz, the reopening lineup features work by John Cassavetes, Kathleen Collins, Luis Buñuel, Mira Nair, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Ingmar Bergman, Terence Davies, and much more––with many on film prints.

One can also enter to win a pass for Schwartz’s series “The Paris is For Lovers,” with a newly-unveiled scavenger hunt tied to Ira Deutchman’s new documentary Searching for Mr. Rugoff, which opens on August 13 and is part of the lineup.

The Paris Theater, a beloved arthouse cinema in New York City, is reopening its doors next month.

To celebrate its return on Aug. 6, filmmaker Radha Blank is curating a slate of repertory titles to screen alongside her directorial debut “The Forty-Year-Old Version.” Her movie, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, is playing through Aug. 12.

The Paris opened in 1948 and is the only single-screen movie theater in Manhattan. Netflix acquired the 545-seat venue in 2019 and, prior to Covid-19, held premieres, special events and screenings of its films in the storied institution, which is just south of Central Park.

“I made ‘Forty-Year-Old Version’ in 35mm Black & White in the spirit of the many great films that informed my love of cinema,” says Blank. “I’m excited to show the film in 35mm as intended and alongside potent films by fearless filmmakers who inspired my development as a storyteller and expanded my vision...

The Paris Theater, an NYC cinematic landmark rescued by Netflix in 2019, will officially reopen August 6 with the streamer’s The Forty-Year-Old Version by Radha Blank and a week of repertory films programmed by the director.

The only single-screen movie theater in Manhattan and the borough’s largest, with 545 seats, has hosted limited theatrical engagements since March that included Netflix’ 17 Oscar-nominated films, retrospectives of Charlie Kaufman and Orson Wells, zombie movie classics and a Bob Dylan film series.

The Paris closed in August of 2019 after its lease with City Cinemas expired. That November, Netflix entered an extended lease agreement, said to be for ten years with owner the Solow Family, to keep the theater open and use it for events, screenings and theatrical releases of its films. The first was Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. The theater was shuttered by Covid-19 last spring.

(In May of 2020, Netflix acquired another storied theaters,...

Cannes Classics

Mark Cousins‘ documentary “The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas,” following the legendary “The Last Emperor” and “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” producer’s annual drive to Cannes, will be the pre-opener at the Cannes Classics selection this year.

Restored titles this year include “Friendship’s Death” by Peter Wollen, starring Tilda Swinton; “F For Fake” by Orson Welles; “Mulholland Drive” by David Lynch (2001 U.S.); “I Know Where I’m Going!” by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; and “The Double Life Of Véronique by Krzysztof Kieślowski”.

The section will also celebrate the work of actor/director Bill Duke with a screening of “The Killing Floor” (1985); Japanese actor and filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s “Tsuki Wa Noborinu”; Spanish actor and filmmaker Ana Marisca’s “El Camino” from 1964; French maven Marcel Camus’ “Orfeu Negro” and Italian master Roberto Rossellini’s “Francesco, Giullare Di Dio”.

Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American director in the history of U.

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 2021 Cannes Classics section. Made up of a selection of restored prints, the roster also includes new documentaries that explore the history of cinema. Among the offerings is Mark Cousins’ pre-opening doc, The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, which covers a yearly drive with the British producer from London to Cannes. Cousins and Thomas will be in town for the presentation. (Scroll down for the full Cannes Classics list.)

Restored titles include David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive; 1945’s I Know Where I’m Going! by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 1991 drama The Double Life Of Véronique; Orson Welles’ F For Fake from 1973; and Friendship’s Death by Peter Wollen which features Tilda Swinton’s first role.

Among the special events are a tribute to director and actor Bill Duke who will present his 1985 The Killing Floor which premiered at Critics...

Tilda Swinton to attend restored screening of Peter Wollen’s 1987 UK film Friendship’s Death.

Two documentaries from Mark Cousins and restored films from Kinuyo Tanaka, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles will screen in Cannes Classics, announced on Wednesday (June 23).

Cousins’ The Story Of Film: A New Generation and The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, a profile of the celebrated British producer, are among a documentary line-up that incudes Buñuel, Un Cineasta Surrealista from Javier Espada, and All About Yves Montand by Yves Jeuland.

The roster of restored narrative films includes David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive, Japanese actor-filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s (pictured) The Moon Has Risen,...

The Mubi Podcast returns with a look at Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, a film that nearly beat Jaws at the Brazilian box office and turned Sonia Braga from national star to national deity.Below, host Rico Gagliano interviews the film’s director Bruno Barreto. Barreto goes beyond the conversation featured in episode 3 and discusses his love for John Ford, Pietro Germi and Francois Truffaut and shares more behind-the-scenes details about the making of Dona Flor.To listen to the episode and subscribe on your preferred podcast app, click here.Rico Gagliano: Tell me about the first film you remember having an impact on you, and when that was. Bruno Barreto: Well, I was very impressed always by American cinema. My Darling Clementine, John Ford's masterpiece, was something that really made a huge impact on me. Gagliano: What about it?Barreto: I mean, the story itself. The realism.

In the midst of a military dictatorship, a Brazilian filmmaker barely out of his teens brought a beloved magical realist story about food, sex and happy compromises to the screen, and it nearly blew Jaws out of Brazil’s box office waters. Episode 3 of the Mubi Podcast looks at the 1976 dark comedy Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, featuring interviews with the film’s director Bruno Barreto and Kleber Mendonça Filho, co-director of the Cannes-winning Bacarau, amongst others.The first season of the Mubi Podcast, titled “Lost in Translation,” spotlights movies that were massive cultural phenomena in their home countries, but nowhere else. We explore why these films fascinated so many people in one place, at one time. With episodes spanning nearly every continent, tune in weekly to discover unique film stories from around the globe.Listen to episode 3 below or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcherSpotifyGoogle PodcastsMoreEach episode,...

Among the Oscar nominations surprises every year is the Best Director lineup. Remember when Steven Spielberg (“The Color Purple”), Ron Howard (“Apollo 13”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”) all won at the Directors Guild of America Awards but were snubbed by the directors branch of the academy. This year DGA nominee Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) was likewise left off the list of Oscar contenders. He was replaced by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg for his superb “Another Round,” which also picked up a bid for Best International Feature. He joins a long roster of Best Director nominees for films other than in English.

The academy first embraced international filmmakers in the 1960s. Italian auteur Federico Fellini was nominated for his 1961 classic “La Dolce Vita.” He contended again two years later for “8 1/2.” He reaped two more bids for “Fellini Satyricon” (1970) and “Amarcord’ (1975).

Predict the 2021 Oscars winners through...

Different shades of the noir genre to be seen across the history of cinema at the 12th century Křivoklát Castle in the Czech Republic. The Noir Film Festival in the Czech Republic, focused exclusively on the different forms and shapes of the noir genre, is bracing for its 8th edition despite the unstable situation. The upcoming edition will explore the strange worlds of David Lynch inspired by noir classics, such as Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Drive (2001). Besides American noir, the festival will also focus on Italian takes on the genre in Pietro Germi’s Four Ways Out (1951) and noir reborn as giallo in horror thrillers The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Deep Red (1975). Czechoslovak noir retains a traditional spot at the festival and the 8th edition will introduce Otakar Vávra’s The Magic House (1939), example of Czechoslovak neorealism...

Wife of a SpyThe programme for the 2020 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Gia Coppola, Lav Diaz, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Alice Rohrwacher, Gianfranco Rosi, Frederick Wiseman, Chloé Zhao, and more.COMPETITIONIn Between Dying (Hilal Baydarov)Le sorelle Macluso (Emma Dante)The World to Come (Mona Fastvold)Nuevo Orden (Michel Franco)Lovers (Nicole Garcia)Laila in Haifa (Amos Gitai)Dear Comrades (Andrei Konchalovsky)Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)Sun Children (Majid Majidi)Pieces of a Woman (Kornél Mundruczó)Miss Marx (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Padrenostro (Claudio Noce)Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi)Never Gonna Snow AgainThe Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)And Tomorrow The Entire World (Julia Von Heinz)Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Zbanic)Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Ties (Daniele Luchetti)Lasciami Andare (Stefano Mordini)Mandibules (Quentin Dupieux)Love After Love (Ann Hui)Assandria (Salvatore Mereu)The Duke (Roger Michell)Night in Paradise (Park Hoon-jung)Mosquito...

With Telluride Film Festival forced to cancel their yearly event, what is now the first of the major fall festivals, Venice, has announced their complete lineup. Along with Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, which was revealed yesterday, the lineup includes more of our most-anticipated films of the year, including Frederick Wiseman’s City Hall, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Gia Coppola’s Mainstream, Abel Ferrara’s Sportin’ Life, Lav Diaz’s Genus Pan, Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno, and more.

There were also a few surprises in the lineup. Luca Guadagnino has directed a new documentary titled Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, while Alice Rohrwacher and Jr have teamed for the new short film, Omelia Contadina. Quentin Dupieux’s Mandibules will also premiere out of competition.

In perhaps the best surprise of all, a new, recently uncovered film by Orson Welles,...

There are not as many new films being made and some completed films are holding out until 2021 to make their festival premiere, but there’s no shortage of new restorations coming to film festivals soon. Cannes recently revealed their Classics lineup of titles screening this fall and hopefully coming to discs in the near future, and now it is Venice’s turn.

They’ve revealed the new restorations that will first screen at Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy on August 25-31, followed by screenings at Venice Film Festival soon after. New restorations include work by Martin Scorsese, Souleymane Cissé, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shôhei Imamura, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov, and more. Some of these films already have forthcoming disc releases announced, including Claudine, coming to Criterion this fall.

Check out the lineup below (via Deadline) as well as the Venice Critics’ Week slate, which includes the Terrence Malick...

Restoration strand to take place outside of the city this year.

Films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet are among the lineup of the Venice Classics section at the 77th Venice Film Festival.

The 13 titles include Scorsese gangster drama Goodfellas, which has been restored by Warner Bros. and received its world premiere at Venice in 1990.

Others include Antonioni’s 1950 drama Chronicle Of A Love, which as been restored by Cineteca di Bologna; Sidney Lumet’s 1973 neo-noir thriller Serpico, restored by Studiocanal; and Souleymane Cissé’s 1975 Malian film The Young Girl, restored by Cinémathèque Française.

The strand, which comprises restored versions of classic films,...

The full lineup for the 77th Venice Film Festival will be announced on July 28. In the meantime, organizers have set the roster of restored titles that will make up the Venice Classics section which, unconventionally this year, will be hosted as part of the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy from August 25-31 in a show of solidarity between the events. The selection, which includes works by Michelangelo Antonioni, Shôhei Imamura, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov and Martin Scorsese will then be screened in Venice in the following months.

The Venice Film Festival, the first major international film event to take place since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, will be held from September 2-12 on the Lido. Certain changes owing to sanitary protocols imposed by the Covid-19 crisis were announced earlier this month, including the shifting of venues for the Classics section. The overall number of...

The Rome Film Festival has announced plans to hold a physical edition from Oct. 15-25, featuring several titles from the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection, alongside a roster of other pics including David Bowie origin pic “Stardust” and local crowdpleaser “Mi Chiamo Francesco Totti” (“My Name is Francesco Totti”), a doc about the A.S. Roma soccer team’s iconic former captain.

Produced by Fremantle’s Italian units Lorenzo Mieli’s The Apartment and Mario Gianani’s Wildside and other partners including Vision Distribution, Rai Cinema and Amazon Prime Video, “Totti” is described in promotional materials as an intimate tale, told in first person, about both Totti the athlete and the man, a native Roman who spent his entire 24-year career with A.S. Roma before retiring in 2017. Vision is handling international sales.

“Totti” is directed by Alex Infascelli who previously made a well-received doc titled “S is for Stanley,...

Mubi's retrospective Fellini at 100 is showing April 29 - July 13, 2020 in many countries.As someone raised in a town of 500, itching to escape to the nearest city for the best part of my childhood, Fellini’s characters have always felt familiar. “His films are a small-town boy’s dream of the big city,” Orson Welles told Playboy in a 1967 interview, and indeed, dotting them are heroes and eccentrics who either share the director’s provincial origins or dance through the frame with the stupor of perpetual strangers in strange lands. “He’s right,” Fellini said about Welles’s remark, “and that’s no insult.” For that naïve awe is the source of the ageless charm of Fellini’s whole cinema. If the films he made over a career spanning five decades still feel so alive and vibrant, it’s because they nurture the same childlike wonder of their protagonists, and their inordinate lust for life.

“Parasite” had a big weekend, winning Best Original Screenplay at the Writers Guild of America Awards on Saturday and the BAFTAs on Sunday for Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won, setting it up nicely to claim the corresponding Oscar next weekend. Should that happen, the South Korean hit would be the sixth foreign language film to do so.

The first five are:

1. Switzerland’s “Marie-Louise” (1945), written by Richard Schweizer

2. France’s “The Red Ballon” (1956), written by Albert Lamorisse

3. Italy’s “Divorce Italian Style” (1962), written by Ennio de Concini, Alfredo Giannetti and Pietro Germi

4. France’s “A Man and a Woman” (1966), written by Claude Lelouch and Pierre Uytterhoeven

5. Spain’s “Talk to Her” (2002), written by Pedro Almodovar

Of these, “A Man and a Woman” is the only one to also take home Best International Feature Film, formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film, which “Parasite” is basically a lock to win.

Claude Lelouch on influencing Terrence Malick: "I'm happy that you say so." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

When I spoke with Claude Lelouch at his hotel in New York less than two years ago, he believed that The Best Years Of A Life (Les Plus Belles Années D'Une Vie), starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Anouk Aimée, and Monica Bellucci would be his last.

Now he has La Vertu Des Impondérables with Elsa Zylberstein (Un + une with Jean Dujardin and Christopher Lambert), Marianne Denicourt, Ary Abittan, and Stéphane De Groodt (Israel Horovitz's My Old Lady) in the works.

Claude Lelouch: "In Un Homme Et Une Femme (A Man And A Woman), when Anouk Aimée arrives at the end on the train platform, she didn't know Jean-Louis Trintignant would be there."

In 1966, Un Homme Et Une Femme won the Cannes Palme d'Or, and in 1967 won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and Claude Lelouch took Best Writing,...

Luigi Comencini's oeuvre is just bulging with goodies, a cinematic Santa-sack encompassing multiple genres and tones, in a career running from the late forties to the early nineties. I recently sang the praises of his desperate gambling comedy The Scientific Card Player, but he also made films about Casanova's boyhood, virtual reality and, in Italian Secret Service (1968), the then-resurgent espionage genre, Italian and world politics, and the decline of Italian idealism since the war.Just as Pietro Germi's Divorce: Italian Style was about murder, and De Sica's Marriage: Italian Style took in adultery, betrayal and uncertain parentage, so Comencini's title contains a bitter joke: we know this intelligence service is going to be sordid, stupid and utterly lacking in the accustomed James Bond lifestyle.But we first meet our hero, dashing Nino Manfredi, in the happier times of WWII, saving an English commando (Clive Revill) from a fascist...

One thing that distinguished this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato festival of rare, rediscovered or restored cinema from around the world was the air-conditioning. In previous years, the "cinephile's heaven" had seen people falling asleep at films they'd waited their whole lives to see, struck down by stifling midsummer heat. Now, even that beloved cinematic sweatbox the Jolly can cool its customers enough to mostly stave off somnolence, and if a hardboiled cinephage does pass out, it's more likely to be due to the unforgiving schedule of nine-to-midnight viewings.The doughty traveler can concentrate on seeing everything in one or two strands—retrospectives on the cinema of 1898 and 1918, the work of directors John M. Stahl, Marcello Pagliero, Luciano Emmer and Ylmaz Guney, the studio Fox, the countries China and Russia in the early thirties, and so on... or they can do as I did, sampling almost randomly from across the goodies on offer.

After polling critics from around the world for the greatest American films of all-time, BBC has now forged ahead in the attempt to get a consensus on the best comedies of all-time. After polling 253 film critics, including 118 women and 135 men, from 52 countries and six continents a simple, the list of the 100 greatest is now here.

Featuring canonical classics such as Some Like It Hot, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, Duck Soup, Playtime, and more in the top 10, there’s some interesting observations looking at the rest of the list. Toni Erdmann is the most recent inclusion, while the highest Wes Anderson pick is The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s also a healthy dose of Chaplin and Lubitsch with four films each, and the recently departed Jerry Lewis has a pair of inclusions.

Check out the list below (and my ballot) and see more on their official site.

100. (tie) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese,...

Elle

Blu-ray

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

2017 / Color / 2.40:1 widescreen / Street Date March 14, 2017

Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, Charles Berling.

Cinematography: Stéphane Fontaine

Film Editor: Job Ter Burg

Written by David Birke

Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Michèle Leblanc, glamorous entrepreneur of a successful video game company, is the calm at the center of many storms. Her son’s girlfriend has given birth to another man’s child, an employee is stalking her with anime porn and her botox-ridden mother is betrothed to a male prostitute.

In the face of all this outrageous fortune, Michèle remains cool, calm and collected, even in the aftermath of her own harrowing sexual assault.

Elle, the new film from the Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven, begins with that already infamous assault, our heroine struggling under the weight of her attacker while an unblinking cat perches nearby, watching.

"The Most Beautiful Wife"   The 'double standard' between men and women reveals its roots in paternalistic barbarism, as demonstrated by this quality Italo crime picture about a young woman claimed against her will by a Mafia thug. The gorgeous star Ornella Muti makes her debut; the sinister Mafia punk is Alessio Orano. It's strong stuff, but not exploitative. La moglie più bella Blu-ray Twilight Time 1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date September 6, 2016 / The Most Beautiful Wife / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store24.95 Starring Ornella Muti, Alessio Orano, Tano Cimarosa, Pierluigi Aprà Cinematography Franco di Giacomo Production Design Umberto Turco Film Editor Antonio Siciliano Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Damiano Damiani, Sofia Scandurra, Enrico Ribulisi Directed by Damiano Damiani

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

One doesn't expect an Italian crime film to help bring about social change, but this show may be an exception. Frankly, its dark them fits right...

The Festival de Cannes has announced the lineup for the official selection, including the Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as special screenings, for the 69th edition of the festival:COMPETITIONOpening Night: Café Society (Woody Allen) [Out of Competition]Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar)American Honey (Andrea Arnold)Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)La Fille Inconnue (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne)Juste La Fin du Monde (Xavier Dolan)Ma Loute (Bruno Dumont)Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)Rester Vertical (Alain Guiraudie)Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho)Mal de Pierres (Nicole Garcia)I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)Ma' Rosa (Brillante Mendoza)Bacalaureat (Cristian Mungiu)Loving (Jeff Nichols)Agassi (Park Chan-Wook)The Last Face (Sean Penn)Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu)Elle (Paul Verhoeven)The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding-Refn)The Salesman (Asgha Farhadi)Un Certain REGARDOpening Film: Clash (Mohamed Diab)Varoonegi (Behnam Behzadi)Apprentice (Boo Junfeng)Voir du Pays (Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin)La Danseuse (Stéphanie Di Giusto)La...

Section to include world premiere of Bertrand Tavernier doc; a cinema masterclass with William Friedkin and a tribute to documentary giants Raymond Depardon and Frederick Wiseman.

Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary about French cinema Voyage à Travers le Cinéma Français will receive a world premiere at the Cannes Classic section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 11-22).

The revered French filmmaker has described his latest work as an expression of “gratitude to all the filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians that have appeared suddenly in my life.”

Voyage à Travers le Cinéma Français is a Little Bear-Gaumont-Pathé co-production and was made in participation with Canal+, Cine+ and the Sacem, with the support of Région Ile-de-France and Cnc. Gaumont will handle international sales and Pathé have distribution in France. The film will be released in theaters in October 2016.

As in previous years, Cannes Classic will also feature nine documentaries about cinema and restored prints of 20 international classics including rare gems...

Section to include a cinema masterclass with William Friedkin, the 70th anniversary of the Fipresci prize, a tribute to documentary giants Raymond Depardon and Frederick Wiseman and the double Palme d’Or of 1966.

Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary about French cinema Voyage à Travers le Cinéma Français will receive a world premiere at the Cannes Classic section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 11-22).

The legendary French filmmaker has described his latest work as an expression of “gratitude to all the filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians that have appeared suddenly in my life.”

Voyage à Travers le Cinéma Français is a Little Bear-Gaumont-Pathé co-production and was made in participation with Canal+, Cine+ and the Sacem, with the support of Région Ile-de-France and Cnc. Gaumont will handle international sales and Pathé have distribution in France. The film will be released in theaters in October 2016.

As in previous years, Cannes Classic will also feature nine documentaries about cinema and restored...

Now that most of the Cannes Film Festival 2016 line-up has been settled when it comes to new premieres, their Cannes Classics sidebar of restored films is not only a treat for those attending, but a hint at what we can expect to arrive at repertory theaters and labels like Criterion in the coming years.

Today they’ve unveiled their line-up, which is toplined by Bertrand Tavernier‘s new 3-hour and 15-minute documentary about French cinema, Voyage à travers le cinéma français. They will also be screening William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer following his masterclass. Along with various documentaries, both classics in the genre and ones about films, they will also premiere new restorations of Andrei Tarkovsky‘s Solaris, Jean-Luc Godard‘s Masculin féminin, two episodes of Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s The Decalogue, as well as films from Kenji Mizoguchi, Marlon Brando, Jacques Becker, Mario Bava, and more.

Check out the line-up below.

Above: 1965 Czech poster for Three Fables of Love (Blasetti, Bromberger, Clair, Berlanga, Italy/Spain, 1962). Designer: Karel Teissig.Two events provoked this article. First of all, last week I saw the wonderful 1963 Czech fable The Cassandra Cat (a.k.a. When the Cat Comes) at New York’s newest cinephile hotspot, the Metrograph. In this charming New Wave satire a cat wearing dark glasses is brought into a small town by a circus troupe and, when his glasses are removed, the townspeople are revealed in their true colors: namely neon shades of purple, yellow and pink, each representing their vices or virtues. The highlight of the film for me, aside from a psychedelic freak-out dance party in the middle of the film, comes when all the children of the town march through the street bearing large drawings of cats. Chris Marker would have loved this film.The second event was the...

She's beautiful, desired and enjoys a social mobility in the improving Italian economy... but she's also a pawn of cruel materialist values. Stefania Sandrelli personifies a liberated spirit who lives for the moment, but who can't form the relationships we call 'living.' Antonio Pietrangeli and Ettore Scola slip an insightful drama into the young Sandrelli's lineup of comedy roles. I Knew Her Well Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 801 1965 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Io la conoscevo bene / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Stefania Sandrelli, Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Brialy, Joachim Fuchsberger, Nino Manfredi, Enrico Maria Salerno, Ugo Tognazzi, Karin Dor, Franco Nero. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Production design Maurizio Chiari Film Editor Franco Fraticelli Original Music Piero Picconi Written by Antonio Pietrangeli, Ruggero Maccari, Etore Scola Produced by Turi Vasile Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Did a new kind of woman emerge in the 1960s?...

Above: Czech poster for Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, Spain/Switzerland, 1966) by Karel Machálek.The last piece I wrote for Movie Poster of the Week in 2015 was about Doctor Zhivago. Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight, which competed against Zhivago at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival (they both lost out for the Grand Prize to Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman and Pietro Germi’s The Birds, The Bees and the Italians) was actually filmed next door to Zhivago in Spain in late 1964 and early 1965. In Peter Bogdanovich’s book of interviews with the director, Welles talks about a conversation that takes place next to a fireplace:“That scene was originally to have been shot in the skeleton of an orchard with poor little black trees in the snow... We moved indoors for it because we couldn’t get the snow. David Lean, making Doctor Zhivago next door to us,...

Debbie Reynolds ca. early 1950s. Debbie Reynolds movies: Oscar nominee for 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown,' sweetness and light in phony 'The Singing Nun' Debbie Reynolds is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 23, '15. An MGM contract player from 1950 to 1959, Reynolds' movies can be seen just about every week on TCM. The only premiere on Debbie Reynolds Day is Jerry Paris' lively marital comedy How Sweet It Is (1968), costarring James Garner. This evening, TCM is showing Divorce American Style, The Catered Affair, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and The Singing Nun. 'Divorce American Style,' 'The Catered Affair' Directed by the recently deceased Bud Yorkin, Divorce American Style (1967) is notable for its cast – Reynolds, Dick Van Dyke, Jean Simmons, Jason Robards, Van Johnson, Lee Grant – and for the fact that it earned Norman Lear (screenplay) and Robert Kaufman (story) a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination.

'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

With the addition of Marion Cotillard’s lead actress nomination for the Belgian film Two Days, One Night, 32 actors and actresses have been nominated for their performances in foreign-language films. Cotillard was nominated for her role as a young mother and wife struggling to salvage her job in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes’ film, which was chosen as Belgium’s submission to the foreign-language category but failed to secure a spot on the Oscar shortist.

Though her performance did land a Critics’ Choice Award nomination, the Oscar nomination did come as a surprise for many pundits.

Cotillard was previously nominated for the French foreign-language film La Vie En Rose (2007) and won. She is one of six actors or actresses to win for a non-English role and is also the most recent winner.

The first acting nomination for a foreign-language performance went to Sophia Loren in 1962 for...

The more ludicrous life gets, the more we need Italian comedy. When the world gets you down, the most surefire cure might be Anna Magnani — in a blond wig and a skintight evening dress dotted with flirty crystal fringe — traipsing from one end of Rome to the next, desperately in search of New Year's Eve fun. She's the shimmery, shimmying center of Mario Monicelli's 1960 farce The Passionate Thief, which has never been released in the United States on VHS or DVD. But che fortuna! It rolls into town, newly restored, for a one-week run on December 5, as part of Film Forum's two-week celebration of the Italian comedy maestro.

Monicelli, along with Dino Risi and Pietro Germi, was one of the foremost figures of the commedia all'italiana, ...

I don’t make films myself, but it seems obvious to me there are but two places to learn how to make movies: in the outside world constrained by so-called reality, and in the inside world of the cinema’s darkness, constrained by so-called illusion. Travelogue tales and quotidian reportage being of little interest here, a log for illusionary research and experience, I must duly deliver my film report on the films that came upon me in the darkness of the Melbourne International Film Festival, which ran from July 31 - August 17, and the lessons learned.

Awe Sum

Epic of Everest

So many academics and cinephiles alike seem consternated by Walter Benjamin's paen to the the aura of an original artwork, something squandered, lost, obfuscated, or obliterated in the mechanical reproduction of art in post cards, photographic duplicates, and, of course, cinema. But upon encountering at the festival a restoration...