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The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first wave of titles for its 75th edition, including features in its Panorama, Berlinale Special and Generation strands.

An initial 12 titles have been revealed for Panorama, of which eight are world premieres. These include Paul, a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Denis Cote, who has played in competition at Berlin four times with titles including Vic + Flo Saw A Bear and That Kind Of Summer. His latest follows a man struggling with social anxiety who finds refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

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The Berlin Film Festival forges a new path next year with the first year under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, who succeeds Carlo Chatrian and brings a background as a journalist and curator to the annual German showcase. This year’s festival runs February 13-23, and also in new positions this year are Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz, both serving as co-directors of programming.

With bigger announcements to come, the Berlinale unveiled its first wave of titles across the Panorama and Berlinale Special gala lineups on Tuesday. As previously announced, Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” is opening this coming 75th edition. Filmmakers getting a boost from today’s announcement include Denis Côté, Michel Gondry, and Ira Sachs, all bringing new films to the festival.

In the Berlinale Special lineup, German director Jan-Ole Gerster debuts the neo-noir thriller “Islands,” starring Sam Riley and Stacy Martin. Per the festival synopsis, in the film,...

Michel Gondry and Ira Sachs are among the headline filmmakers set to debut new feature works within the sidebar competitions at next year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The German festival announced the pair this afternoon as part of its first crop of confirmed titles.

Gondry will screen Maya, Give Me a Title in Berlin’s Generation sidebar. The festival’s website describes the film as Gondry’s “stop-motion love letter to his daughter Maya brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that invites you to dream and laugh.”

Also set for the Generation competition is Our Wildest Days (I Agries Meres Mas) by Greek filmmaker Vasilis Kekatos who is best known for his 2019 short film The Distance Between Us and the Sky, which won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. He also created the popular Greek series Milky Way.

Related:...

The Belin Film Festival has unveiled its Panorama lineup, including new works by Denis Côté, Ira Sachs, Michel Gondry and Shatara Michelle Ford, among others.

Sachs’ movie, “Peter Hujar’s Day,” stars Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall. Set for an international premiere in Berlin, the film portrays a 1974 conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz, set against the backdrop of the New York art scene of the time.

Côté’s film, “Paul,” is a documentary about a man struggling with depression and social anxiety who found refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

Gondry’s “Maya, Give Me a Title” is described by the festival as a “stop-motion love letter to his daughter Maya brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that invites you to dream and laugh.” It features the voice of “The Count of Monte-Cristo” star Pierre Niney.

Ford’s “Dreams in Nightmares,...

John Magaro, Kate Dickie and Jason Isaacs will be heading to the chilly streets of Berlin. The Berlin Film Festival unveiled the first gala screenings for its 2025 edition, which runs Feb. 13-23.

Islands, the new feature from German director Jan-Ole Gerster (Lara, A Coffee in Berlin), is among the gala highlights. The thriller stars British actor Sam Riley (Control, Maleficent) as a once-promising tennis professional now working as a tennis coach for holidaymakers on a resort island, filling his time with alcohol and brief affairs. Stacy Martin, Jack Farthing, and Dylan Torrell co-star.

Köln 75 from director Ido Fluk, follows the true story of Vera Brandes, teenage patron saint of the 1970s Cologne music scene, who risked everything to organize Keith Jarrett’s legendary Köln Concert, considered by many to be the greatest solo concert in music history. German actress Mala Emde play Fluk with John Magaro, Michael Chernus and Alexander Scheer co-starring.

Exclusive: Production has wrapped on under-the-radar sophomore feature Honey Bunch from writer-directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, who made their debut with TIFF, Sundance and SXSW selection Violation. XYZ is handling sales, financing and serving as exec producer.

Rising Canadian actors Grace Glowicki (Tito) and Ben Petrie (BlackBerry) star, while Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter saga), Kate Dickie (The Witch), India Brown (Invasion) and Julian Richings (Beau Is Afraid) round out the cast.

The logline reads: “When Diana (Glowicki) wakes from a coma with fragmented memories, she and her husband (Petrie) seek experimental treatments at a remote facility. As the procedures intensify, their marriage is put to the test and Diana begins to question her husband’s true motives.”

The Canadian production is a part of XYZ’s New Visions slate of films designed to spotlight new talent.

The film is written by Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli and produced by Becky Yeboah,...

Rooftop Films folks have announced the grant recipients for the large swath of filmmakers’ funds and in the narrative feature categories we have the likes of Carlos López Estrada, Andrew Thomas Huang, Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli grabbing some coin. Estrada who has directed Sundance selected Blindspotting and Summertime has Kill Yr Idols in the works. Tandem of Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli who gave us the TIFF-Sundance preemed Violation will next be working on Honey Bunch. A lab fellow at Sundance, Andrew Thomas Huang continues to piece together his directorial debut in Tiger Girl. Here is the complete list of 2023 Rooftop Filmmakers Fund short and feature film grant recipients:

Water Tower Feature Film Cash Grants (Feature Film)

Carlos López Estrada – “Kill Yr Idols”

Jodie Mack – “Early Mourning, Tarpon Springs/Lindsey’s Color Service”

Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli – “Honey Bunch”

Reid Davenport – “Life After”

Eastern Effects Equipment Grant (Feature Film)

Alex Ross Perry...

Rooftop Films has announced the recipients of their 2023 Filmmakers Fund grants. A total of 21 cash and service grants will be awarded to a variety of independent filmmakers to support the production of their next short or feature film. Four Rooftop Films Water Tower Feature Film cash grants will be exclusively awarded with support from the Laurence W. Levine Foundation.

Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grants are made accessible to Rooftop Films alumni directors who have had their work screened during the annual Sumer Series in New York City. This years grantees include a demographic of over 60% women, 30% people of color and 10% people a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“We’re unbelievably excited about the projects we’ve had the privilege of helping to fund this year! Every single one of these filmmakers approach their subjects in ways that are wholly unique to their style and vision, and we can’t wait to see the finished works,...

Alice, the titular protagonist of “Alice, Darling,” cannot think of lying to her boyfriend, Simon, without throwing up. Yet she insists to her friends, who have noticed her gradual withdrawal, that everything is fine. They love each other.

Sure, Simon makes her feel awful about everything: her friends, her eating habits, her job. He regularly guilts her into sex and sexting. He’s winnowed her life down to the essential, arduous project of stroking his ego. But he doesn’t hit her, rarely yells at her. So what does she have to complain about?

“Alice, Darling,” the debut feature from director Mary Nighy, picks at these common ideas — that abuse only looks a certain way, that mental scars cannot be as serious as physical ones — until they unravel. Alanna Francis (“The Rest of Us”) has written a tastefully subtle story of intimate partner violence. As Alice, Anna Kendrick hits her notes well.

It's that frightfully delightful time of year again for Fangoria's highly anticipated Chainsaw Awards, with this year's nominees including Nia DaCosta's Candyman, Don Mancini's Chucky series, Jill Gevargizian's The Stylist, and many more!

You can check out the full list of nominees below, and to cast your votes, visit:

https://www.fangoria.com/original/chainsaw-awards-2022/

In their most recent magazine issue, Fangoria officially announced the nominations for its 2022 Chainsaw Awards, and horror fans everywhere can currently cast their votes at https://www.fangoria.com/original/chainsaw-awards-2022/ for their favorite films, television series, directors, artists, and more that kept us all thrilled, chilled and entertained throughout the course of 2021. Winners will be celebrated later this year during a yet-to-be-revealed Chainsaw Awards event.

The 2022 Chainsaw Awards Nominees include fan favorite films such as James Wan’s Malignant, Candyman from Nia DaCosta, and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho,...

Rlje Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has picked up select rights to the horror film, Violation fromShudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural. Rlje Films will release Violation on Digital HD and Blu-ray on September 21, 2021.. Check out the trailer:

Now you can win the Win the DVD of Violation. We Are Movie Geeks has two to give away. Just leave a comment below telling us what your favorite horror movie that starts with the letter ‘V’ is (I’d say Vampire Circus. It’s so easy!)

1. You Must Be A US Resident. Prize Will Only Be Shipped To US Addresses. No P.O. Boxes. No Duplicate Addresses.

2. Winner Will Be Chosen From All Qualifying Entries. No Purchase Necessary

The feature screenwriting and directorial debut of Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, Violation stars Sims-Fewer along with Anna Maguire (Ever After: A Cinderella Story), Jesse Lavercombe...

2021 SXSW Violation Review — Violation (2020) Video Movie Review from the 28th Annual South By Southwest Film Festival, a movie directed by Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer, and stars Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse Lavercombe, Obi Abili, Jasmin Geljo, and Cynthia Ashperger. Crew Andrea Boccadoro created the music for the film. Adam Crosby crafted the [...]

Continue reading: Video Movie Review: Violation: A Dark, Self-serious Revenge Film that Benefits from its Heroine & Sequencing [SXSW 2021]...

Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy earns nine nods including best film.

Jeff Barnaby’s zombie horror Blood Quantum leads the Canadian Screen Awards nominations with 10 nods, the organisation announced on Tuesday (March 30)

The genre title from Prospector Films missed out on a best picture nomination but is in contention for lead actor with Michael Greyeyes, who starred in Sundance breakout Wild Indian, and garnered nods for best effects, best screenplay for Barnaby, and Michel St-Martin’s cinematography, among others.

Deepa Mehta’s Funny Boy earned nine nods including best film alongside Tracey Deer’s Beans, Pascal Plante’s Nadia, Butterfly,...

Violation — written, directed, and produced by ongoing collaborators Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli — is. Among those ostensible norms: the linear path from inciting assault to bloody revenge. It isn’t so much that the rules of rape-revenge haven’t been broken before; we’re currently in a moment for movies in which they’re being broken, troubled, and thrown back on themselves with relative frequency. What’s interesting to track are the ways that these attempts to subvert the genre — to be subversive, even — can often fall into some of the same,...

Violation, the first feature by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, is one of the recent efforts that best subverts genre cinema, specifically the rape-revenge film. When I had the opportunity to interview the writers/directors, I asked them about the different elements that make Violation such a unique and fascinating experience. It all starts with its style and mood, closer to auteur cinema. Then we have the construction of the act of sexual abuse that will lead us to revenge. Violation reflects the reality of many cases that occurred in an environment of supposed safety and trust. The film also portrays what usually happens when women report sexual assault: they end up being questioned and their cases minimized. The revenge itself is brutal, there are several...

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Crime & Punishment: Sims-Fewer & Mancinelli Serve a Cold Dish

Neither redemption nor revenge are at the complete behest of the individual, at least not in Violation, the rousing debut from Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. Skewering a horde of exploitation tropes in our cultural constellation of sexual assault cinema, it’s a dish served bold, and calibrated effectively in its ability to leave its audience in doubt about sympathies and alliances.

Beautifully shot in its menacing juxtaposition of nature’s predatory hierarchy and the perverted complications of human interactions, the scenario, and its troubled heroine (played with chilly gusto by Sims-Fewer) will remain lodged uncomfortably in your throat as it dares to transgress the boundaries of victim and victimizer, predator and prey.…...

Madeleine Sims-Fewer stars and co-directs this rape-revenge movie that brilliantly and brutally reframes the trauma inflicted by male violence

In Violation’s closing stretch, Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) sits numbly in a rain-lashed car and watches a man harangue his wife in an eastern European language. Miriam has just done something unspeakable, in reaction to something unforgivable; preparing to finish the job at an anonymous motel, it is as if she has crossed a border into a foreign country. But the couple in front of her show the inescapable constant: male violence. Building to a remorseless climax, Sims-Fewer and co-writer/director Dusty Mancinelli brilliantly, and times almost unwatchably, overhaul the rape-revenge movie as something far more realistic, traumatised and noxious.

Miriam has come from London to visit her sister Greta (Anna Maguire) in the Canadian forest idyll she shares with husband Dylan (Jesse Lavercombe). But tension is in the air: in...

Violation Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute Welcome to this week's Stay-At-Home Seven and, as we notch up a full year of them, we hope you've found some inspiration. If you're looking for more ideas about what to catch at home this week, check out our Streaming Spotlight on Romanian filmmakers.

Violation, Shudder, from Thursday, March 25

We mentioned this when it screened as part of Sundance Film Festival's online line-up earlier this year, but if you missed it then it's well worth catching up with Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s psychological horror. Ambiguity is the name of the game for much of this melancholy film that considers both a shocking – and not for the fainthearted – event and its trigger. The story is presented piecemeal, as the deeply disturbing fuller picture begins to emerge, raising complex questions around vengeance and trauma that bite deep. Although this is Canadian it has the cool chill of the.

One of the most jarring, intense films to play at TIFF 2020 and Sundance 2021 was the revenge thriller Violation. Sure to divide audiences, the same ambivalence was shared by one of /Film’s staff critic. In his mixed review, Chris Evangelista called Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s work “unflinchingly brutal” yet “muddled,” while the “pervasive […]

The post ‘Violation’ Directors Explain How They Shot One of the Most Disturbing Movie Scenes of 2021 [Interview] appeared first on /Film.

Above: Carlson Young’s The Blazing World Midnight screenings are my personal haven at festivals. Whenever main competitions start to feel a bit weary, I gladly deflect to genre-driven sessions for a sharper edge and a quickened pulse. At the same time, the competitions have also made some welcome room for genre (consider Parasite or Bacurau), which serves as a reminder that horror has always been well suited not only to bold narrative leaps and visual experimentation, but also to a social and cultural critique. This proclivity continues in the recent electrifying horror movies by Jordan Peele (Get Out and Us), and by indie women directors. I’m thinking particularly of Amy Seimetz’s stellar I Die Tomorrow, which was originally scheduled to premiere at SXSW, in 2020, and Rose Glass’s Saint Maud, an absolute find at TIFF, in 2019, which is finally getting recognition in the UK, and was just released in the US.

Well now. Winter has been a thing, hasn't it? Everything was fine until this past week. What the hell, February? We look to March with fear and trepedation, but also hope because here is the lineup for Shudder next Month and there is a bunch of goodness that will at least warm our horror hearts while staving off frostbite in our toes.    Shudder has some great horror flicks from the ladies next month. The Shudder Original lineup includes Lucky from Natasha Kermani, Violation from Madeleine Sims-Fewer (and her co-director Dusty Mancinelli) and Slaxx from Elza Kephart. They join Stay Out of the Attic, Koko-Di Koko-Da and the popular series A Discovery of Witches next month.    Check out March 16th! Four horror classics -...

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Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe poster for Hong Sang-soo's latest, Introduction, which will compete at this year's Berlinale. The competition slate for the 71st Berlin International Film Festival features a wide range of heavy hitters, from Hong and Radu Jude to Aleksandre Koberidze and Céline Sciamma. The competing titles, as well as the rest of the lineup, can be found here.The lineup for this year's SXSW Film Festival has been announced. The roster includes the directorial debut of House of Psychotic Women author Kier-La Janisse, a documentary on musician William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, and a restoration of Les Blank's I Went to the Dance. Recommended VIEWINGFrom February 17 to February 23, the National Gallery of Art is screening the series "The Voice and Vision of Billy Woodberry." The series includes Woodberry's Bless Their Little Hearts, a landmark work of the L.

Last week we announced the digital-cinema dates for Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli's drama/horror Violation here at home through TIFF and Viff's online platforms. The rollout begins on March 19th through TIFF then the week following on the 26th through Viff.    Violation recently played at Sundance and will also play at SXSW next month. It might have been a rocky start for the Canadian production, premiering during the health crisis, but it's still finding a way to get out to the masses.    Well now, we finally have a Canadian trailer for this critically lauded film, released by Pnp Films. Finally a trailer, period, as this would appear to be the first one out there. Check it out below. It's hard not to ignore...

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Shudder has released the first official trailer for Violation ahead of the revenge thriller’s March premiere on the horror streaming service. The feature filmmaking debut of Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, Violation is a brutal feminist revenge fable that stars Sims-Fewer as a woman on a country retreat with her sister and their partners, who slowly unravels through […]

The post ‘Violation’ Trailer: Feminist Revenge Horror Film Hits Shudder This March appeared first on /Film.

A selection at TIFF, Sundance, and the forthcoming SXSW, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s rape revenge thriller Violation is now arriving on Shudder next month. Starring Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse Lavercombe, and Obi Abili, the film weaves through multiple timelines to tell the story of fierce and deserved retribution after an unthinkable act. Ahead of the release, the first trailer has now arrived.

Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “We’re often told growing up that every story has two sides so that we can learn how to put ourselves into another’s shoes and see whether actions we thought were harmless actually did cause harm. That doesn’t mean you can’t project the sentiments onto adult situations too, though. Especially when they deal with memory. Take Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) and Greta (Anna Maguire) for example—two sisters who used to do everything together in their youth.

Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli's chilling drama/horror Violation is coming home. We shared with you not that long ago that Pacific Northwest Pictures had picked up the Canadian rights for the homegrown TIFF Midnighter.   Working fast they've secured digital-cinema releases through Digital TIFF Bell Lightbox and Viff Connect Virtual Theatre. We've supplied links to both services below.    Exclusive Digital-Cinema Release Digital TIFF Bell Lightbox Begins March 19   Digital-Cinema Release Viff Connect Virtual Theatre Begins March 26   Secrets, carnality, violence, revenge and the merciless spell of the natural world all hover over an ostensibly carefree family get-together in Violation, releasing across Canada beginning March 19 in Toronto.   This audacious debut feature from writer-producer-directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, is also foregrounded by...

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Following the recent screening of Violation at Sundance and ahead of its release on Shudder on March 25th, the official trailer for the film has been released.

Written, produced, and directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli, Violation stars Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse Lavercombe, and Obi Abili.

You can watch the new trailer below, and in case you missed it, read Heather Wixson's Sundance review of the film.

Synopsis: "With her marriage about to implode, Miriam returns to her hometown to seek solace in the comfort of her younger sister and brother-in-law. But one evening a tiny slip in judgement leads to a catastrophic betrayal, leaving Miriam shocked, reeling, and furious. Believing her only recourse is to exact revenge, Miriam takes extreme action, but the price of retribution is high, and she is not prepared for the toll it takes as she begins to emotionally and psychologically unravel."



The...

Shudder has released the first official trailer for “Violation,” a disturbing revenge thriller that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, recently screened at Sundance, and will play SXSW next month ahead of its March 25 streaming release. The film is a haunting psychological drama about a country retreat gone awry when two sisters and their partners hunker down for the weekend. It’s the feature filmmaking debut of Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, with Sims-Fewer delivering a wallop of a performance as the unraveling protagonist.

Here’s the official synopsis, lest we don’t give too much away: “With her marriage about to implode, Miriam returns to her hometown to seek solace in the comfort of her younger sister and brother-in-law. But one evening a tiny slip in judgement leads to a catastrophic betrayal, leaving Miriam shocked, reeling, and furious. Believing her only recourse is to exact revenge, Miriam takes extreme action,...

With the 2021 Sundance Film Festival now officially in the books, here’s a look at three different female-centric films that I had the opportunity to screen during the festival: Frida Kempff’s Knocking, Violation from Madeleine Sims-Frewer and Dusty Macinelli, and Karen Cinorre’s girl power fantasy Mayday.

Knocking: In Knocking, filmmaker Frida Kempff has crafted a timely and effective thriller that explores mental health in a very thoughtful and thought-provoking way. The story is centered around Molly (Cecilia Milocco), a woman who has recently been released from a psychiatric facility after experiencing a traumatic event and is looking to start her life over. As she settles into her new apartment during an oppressive heatwave, Molly begins to hear a mysterious knocking through the wall. What could it be? Is it someone fixing something, or is there something more sinister than that going on? As Molly begins to investigate the strange noises,...

Revenge is a dish best served cold in Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer's feature debut and they also run this psychological horror through with a swirl of inescapable melancholy.

The moment Sims-Fewer's Miriam utters the words "don't" and "stop" they hang in the air, full of ambiguity. Her interpretation differs strongly from that of Dylan (Jesse Lavercombe), although we meet them at an earlier point in this fragmented narrative, as they go for a woodland break with their respective partners. Dylan's relationship with Miriam's sister Greta (Anna Maguire) is full of bouncy flirtation, a stark contrast to Miriam's rockier situation with her other half Caleb (Obi Abili). Disorientingly, we move to a point in the future, where Greta and Miriam seem to be on much frostier terms, animosity prickling between them.

What has happened is not immediately obvious, and ambiguity is the name of the game as the writer/directors take us back and.

Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s domestic horror debut Violation follows Miriam (played by Sims-Fewer), a fraught woman on the verge of divorce, returns home to visit her sister and her husband at their lake home. The trip takes a dark turn when Dylan assaults Miriam, sending her on a violent arc of revenge. Dp Adam Crosby tells us how he captured the film’s lurid takes and how they fostered an environment to explore sensitive topics. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired […]

The post "The Overall Emotional Responsibility of the Film Was a Daunting Task at Times": Dp Adam Crosby on Violation first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s domestic horror debut Violation follows Miriam (played by Sims-Fewer), a fraught woman on the verge of divorce, returns home to visit her sister and her husband at their lake home. The trip takes a dark turn when Dylan assaults Miriam, sending her on a violent arc of revenge. Dp Adam Crosby tells us how he captured the film’s lurid takes and how they fostered an environment to explore sensitive topics. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired […]

The post "The Overall Emotional Responsibility of the Film Was a Daunting Task at Times": Dp Adam Crosby on Violation first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Covid-19 nearly derailed us in post-production, but the longer schedule forced us to think more deeply about the story we were telling and the way we told it. A film is shaped many times—on the page, by the actors in rehearsals, during production, and then again in the edit room. The extra time gave us space to breathe and see new ways of telling our story that we might have rushed past were it […]

The post "The Longer Schedule Forced Us to Think More Deeply": Directors Madeleine Sims-Flower and Dusty Mancinelli | Violation first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Covid-19 nearly derailed us in post-production, but the longer schedule forced us to think more deeply about the story we were telling and the way we told it. A film is shaped many times—on the page, by the actors in rehearsals, during production, and then again in the edit room. The extra time gave us space to breathe and see new ways of telling our story that we might have rushed past were it […]

The post "The Longer Schedule Forced Us to Think More Deeply": Directors Madeleine Sims-Flower and Dusty Mancinelli | Violation first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

We don't talk a lot about Canadian entertainment company Pacific Northwest Pictures but they have been quietly picking up some really good flicks recently. In their current roster is Darius Marder's Sound of Metal with Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke, and Black Bear starring Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon. Seems Pnp know a thing or two about getting good titles, eh?    Now you can add Canadian drama/horror Violation from filmmakers Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. Pnp have picked up the Canadian rights for Violation and are planning a March release. Violation had its world premiere at TIFF back in September and played at a handful of other festivals here in Canada. It plays at Sundance later this month.    Our own Josh caught...

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Well, let’s never do that again. With 2020 nearly over and done with — and good riddance — it’s time to look ahead to what can only be a better year to come. And what better way to prepare for 2021 than by getting excited for a slate of much-anticipated films that have already caught our fancy? Hell, maybe we can actually check these movies out in actual theaters, wouldn’t that be something?

From festival standouts that played earlier in the year or via one of 2020’s many virtual events to delayed releases and awards contenders anteing up for wide showings beyond their 2020 qualifying runs, we’ve been lucky enough to catch some real gems that will call 2021 home. From heavy-hitting contenders like Regina King’s “One Night in Miami,” Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari,” and Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” to heart-stopping indies like Heidi Ewing’s “I Carry You with Me,...

Shudder Acquires Feminist Revenge Fable “Violation” Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s chilling debut feature to premiere exclusively on Shudder later in 2021; Following international premiere at 2021 Sundance Film Festival Shudder, AMC Networks’ premiere streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has announced the acquisition of Violation, the debut feature written, produced and directed …

The post Shudder Acquires Sundance Bound Feminist Revenge Fable Violation appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Ahead of its screening at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli's feature film debut, Violation, has been acquired by Shudder, with a streaming release slated for next year:

Press Release: New York, NY - Shudder, AMC Networks’ premiere streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has announced the acquisition of Violation, the debut feature written, produced and directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, which will be released exclusively on the streaming platform. The bold and unflinching thriller world premiered to critical and audience acclaim at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, where Sims-Fewer was a recipient of the TIFF Rising Star Award, and is also an official selection of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival where it will make its international premiere. Shudder has acquired all rights for the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand to premiere on its service in those territories later next year.

After first shocking Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness audiences last year, Madeline Fewer-Sims and Dusty Mancinelli's incredibly intense revenge thriller Violation will move to AMC's Shudder streaming service in 2021. Just yesterday Violation was named as a part of the upcoming Sundance Film Festival's Midnight section next month, and following that US debut it will premiere to SVOD audiences later in the year through the Shudder's horror-centric streaming platform. No firm date has been given yet. We saw Violation as part of TIFF and we completely shaken by its visceral approach to feminist revenge stories and with this acquisition, it looks to traumatize a whole new audience:  To call Violation a gut punch would be selling it short... Violation is a tremendous film, an...

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Exclusive: Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, whose feature film debut Violation premiered in the Midnight Madness section at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, have signed with WME. The duo co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced the revenge thriller, which also earned Sims-Fewer a TIFF Rising Star award for her starring role.

Canada-born pair Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli had been making short films since meeting at the 2015 TIFF Talent Lab. The pair’s latest, Chubby, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. Their previous shorts include their first, 2017’s Slap Happy, and Woman in Stall.

In Violation, Sims-Fewer plays a woman in an unhappy marriage on a weekend trip with her sister and their husbands at lakeside estate, where unspoken fractures, bottled-up resentments and a violent act are revealed.

The pic, which co-stars Anna Maguire, Obi Abili and Jesse Lavercombe, won awards at both the Calgary and Vancouver film festivals.

Sims-Fewer...

The writing and directing duo of Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer have been working together for a number of years and they're not strangers to difficult subject matter but their feature film debut is a step up in nearly every respect.

Boiled down to its core, Violation is a revenge thriller but one that tackles the difficult subject of sexual assault with a realism and levity that's not often seen in revenge films; This isn't so much a fantasy as it is one woman's struggle to find closure. Also explored are the dynamics of family and sibling dynamics in the face of adversity. Spoiler alert: things are complicated.

Beautifully shot by Adam Crosby and featuring an eerily beautiful score from Mancinelli and Cims-Fewer's frequent collaborator Andrea Boccadoro, Vio...

The most powerful, thought-provoking horror movies are often those that flip genre tropes to examine on screen the very nature of violence that can truly happen in real life. The new psychologically-driven drama, ‘Violation,’ is one such powerful example of a genre feature that includes a strong-will female protagonist who’s determined to do whatever it […]

The post Toronto International Film Festival 2020 Video Interview: Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli Talk Violation (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.

An act of sexual violence leads an awful retribution in Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s Violation, which premiered this past week at the Toronto International Film Festival. But were the film’s execution as simple, as blunt, as this brief synopsis might suggest, there’d be little to distinguish Violation from so many other works in the rape-revenge genre. Instead, in their debut feature Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli have radically scrambled the dramatization of cause and effect, sliding backwards and forwards in their storytelling to place a sexual assault that happens on a couple’s weekend getaway within the broader psychology of the survivor’s family […]...

An act of sexual violence leads an awful retribution in Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s Violation, which premiered this past week at the Toronto International Film Festival. But were the film’s execution as simple, as blunt, as this brief synopsis might suggest, there’d be little to distinguish Violation from so many other works in the rape-revenge genre. Instead, in their debut feature Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli have radically scrambled the dramatization of cause and effect, sliding backwards and forwards in their storytelling to place a sexual assault that happens on a couple’s weekend getaway within the broader psychology of the survivor’s family […]...

Rage, betrayal, confusion, and bloodshed are the driving factors of Violation, an unflinchingly brutal, often quite gruesome story of a woman who goes to extreme lengths following a terrible incident. Writer-directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli do not shy away from the violence, employing meticulously crafted practical effects to portray a jaw-dropping series of events. But while […]

The post ‘Violation’ Review: An Unflinchingly Brutal, Needlessly Muddled Story of Trauma and Revenge [TIFF 2020] appeared first on /Film.

Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for the ending of “Violation.”

In their Master Class during 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, “Transparent” creator Joey Soloway posits that the female gaze, a term originated by film theorist Laura Mulvey, should not strive to be the direct inverse of the male gaze. While women, trans, and non-binary filmmakers are well within their rights to subvert conventional norms around nudity, sexuality, and the framing of bodies, a truly “other gaze” (Soloway’s inclusive amendment of the term) should aim to create new imagery outside of established cinematic tropes. That brings us to Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s unflinchingly grotesque “Violation,” which hammers the bluntest of female gazes into the rape-revenge thriller. Rich in sumptuous visuals that portend its nasty undercurrent,

A resolutely disturbing genre thriller, it opens with the ominous image of a pitch black wolf feasting on a rabbit carcass...

True to its name, “Violation” is about an unforgivable transgression. Written, produced, and directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, their feature debut follows Miriam (Sims-Fewer) on at least two (maybe more) trips to the woods. In one, she ends up venting about her marital problems to her sister’s husband, Dylan (Jesse Lavercombe) and after a drunk kiss the night before, she wakes up to find him raping her by the smoldering campfire in the early morning hours.

Continue reading ‘Violation’ Is A Smart & Visceral Take On The Rape-Revenge Narrative [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Rape revenge films are a fraught bunch, while some seem to seek only to exploit an inappropriate titillation stirred in more lascivious audiences, others take a more nuanced look into the psychology of this very specific kind of trauma. The most successful are able to both tap into the pain and the catharsis of acting out violent revenge, while still maintaining a perspective with which people can relate, if not necessarily empathize with. Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli have plumbed the depths of sexual violence in a number of shorts over the last few years, but never with such meticulous acuity as in their debut feature, Violation. A pair of sisters and their husbands strike out into the woods for a restorative holiday in this...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

You know something terrible is going to happen when the early moments of a film greets you with an obvious reference to “The Shining” — in the case of the time-and-memory-twisting psychological horror “Violation,” the bird’s-eye view of a lone car, creeping ahead on a narrow road through dense trees, accompanied by a screechy score. What you won’t realize in the hair-raising feature debut by filmmaking duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli is just how much worse things will turn out to be than what this signposting might prepare you for.

A chamber piece with the existential mood of Lars von Trier, as well as a trope-defying revenge thriller with a mounting sense of terror, the dismembering, blood-draining frights of “Violation” — from tense familial grudges to an awful case of sexual assault and gaslighting that leads to brutal vengeance — aren’t easy to shake or describe. Suffice it to...

We’re often told growing up that every story has two sides so that we can learn how to put ourselves into another’s shoes and see whether actions we thought were harmless actually did cause harm. That doesn’t mean you can’t project the sentiments onto adult situations too, though. Especially when they deal with memory. Take Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) and Greta (Anna Maguire) for example—two sisters who used to do everything together in their youth. When the topic of teenage injustice first arrives in conversation, their anecdote is colored as Big Sis defending the honor of Little Sis. When it comes up a second time, however, Greta reminds Miriam that she specifically asked her not to do what she did because of the consequences that did ultimately arise.

There are probably many reasons for the difference. The former instance was in a moment of revelry while...