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Georgian director Elene Naveriani’s late-coming-of-age, female empowerment drama Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry topped the prizes at the Swiss Film Awards in Zurich over the weekend.

The drama, which world premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year, revolves around an independent-minded, single woman in her 40s in a small Georgian village, who faces a personal crossroads when she unexpectedly falls in love.

The feature won Best Feature Film, as well as Best Screenplay and for Best Screenplay for Naveriani and for Best Film Editing for Aurora Franco Vögeli.

The Swiss-Georgian co-production was produced by Thomas Reichlin, Ketie Danelia and Bettina Brokemper for Alva Film in Switzerland and Takes Film in Georgia.

Pierre Monnard’s clandestine fight club drama Bisons also won three prizes: Best Film Score for Nicolas Rabaeus, Best Cinematography for Joseph Areddy and Best Actor for Karim Barras.

Swiss-French Barras will also soon be seen in period drama Winter Palace,...

We are still not much closer to the full picture of the boy and how his mere presence has created such an uproar in Bozouls, but Monsieur Spade Season 1 Episode 4 began fleshing it out in some detail.

There are many layers to this entertaining mystery, and as one is peeled away, another is revealed.

The past and present are intricately reliant, and the more we know about one, the more we'll know about the other.

The previews for Monsieur Spade had already hinted at Sam's turn at being a badass, but watching him in action, questioning his attacker with amazing physical prowess without ever leaving his chair, was a treat.

That scene spoke directly to Spade's capabilities and what makes him such a formidable enemy and detective. Even after almost losing his life in a chokehold, he's ridiculously calm and in control.

Filming scenes like that must be a hoot.

When a show starts with dialogue as wicked as what we enjoyed between Sam and Philippe in 1955, you know you're in for an entertaining hour.

Every word from Spade's mouth was golden, and Philippe did his best to match him step for step.

Philippe: You understand what I’m saying?

Sam: Not really, but then I was too busy wondering what day you might finish talking to listen.

Permalink: Not really, but then I was too busy wondering what day you might finish talking to listen. Added: January 28, 2024

But what you could tell during that conversation on Monsieur Spade Season 1 Episode 3 is that Philippe was never a match for Sam Spade.

Philippe Saint Andre talks a good game and tries to act as if he's got the world on a string, but like most criminals, he's got little else going for him, and it shows.

Sam: That’s five hundred thousand francs.

Thomas Cailley’s supernatural drama “The Animal Kingdom” and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” are leading the race at the 49th Cesar Awards with 12 and 11 nominations, respectively.

Triet’s movie, which just garnered an impressive five Oscar nominations, and “The Animal Kingdom,” which opened at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and won a prize, will vie for top Cesar awards including best director and film.

“The Animal Kingdom” is an ambitious film that marks a departure from France’s cinema tradition of social realism. It’s both a creature-filled dystopia and a father-and-son drama, weaving some contemporary concerns over the future of mankind. It’s produced by Pierre Guyard at Nord Ouest Films and co-produced by Artemis.

“Anatomy of a Fall,” meanwhile stars Sandra Hüller — the German actor nominated for Cesar, Oscar and BAFTA awards — as a novelist who is put on trial following the...

The James Bond-esque opening sequence of Monsieur Spade sees a glimmering 1950s whip winding down a spectacular country road in the south of France. Inside the car is Sam Spade (Clive Owen) and a doe-eyed young girl, Teresa (Ella Feraud), whom the legendary detective, first introduced in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, is trying to reunite with her father. When plans go awry and the pair end up stranded, they’re rescued by a glamorous French woman named Gabrielle (Chiara Mastroianni). She, we learn, will become Spade’s wife.

Flash forward eight years and Spade is a broken-hearted widower overseeing Gabrielle’s estate near the town of Bozouls, and he’s placed the teenaged Teresa (now played by Cara Bossom) in a local convent. But what led Spade to a remote town in France with the young girl in the first place? And what occurred in the subsequent eight...

Graphic: Images: IMDb

This list was compiled using data provided by IMDb.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

As a new threat to the galaxy rises, Rey, a desert scavenger, and Finn, an ex-stormtrooper, must join Han Solo and Chewbacca to search for the one hope of restoring peace.

Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth.

Nearly three decades ago, Lloyd Devereux Richards found himself inspired by the Midwest’s dense, haunting forests. Go 60 miles south of Indianapolis, he says, and you’ll find rich woodlands and deep ravines that flow with the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers down into Kentucky and Tennessee.

Within these woodlands, these ravines, there are mysteries. Disappearances. Murders.

Richards, who’s originally from New York City, ended up moving to Vermont, but that stretch of land stuck with him. With it and his “very strong, artistic, intelligent” grandmother in mind, he began drafting his first book, Stone Maidens.

Writing Stone Maidens took 14 years. After that was the long slog of struggling to find an agent. Richards says he was rejected by around 80 before one agreed to take Stone Maidens around to publishers.

On 18 June 2023, the Hungarian State Opera celebrates the greatest Hungarian soprano of the 20th century on the occasion of her birthday with performances by her former and current students, as well as the winners of the Éva Marton International Singing Competition. Special guest star of the evening is one of today’s most exciting rising tenors, Jonathan Tetelman. The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra is conducted by general music director Balázs Kocsár, the gala is directed by artistic director András Almási-Tóth.

Éva Marton, one of the most outstanding dramatic sopranos in the world, has sung the most beautiful and difficult roles of Verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss and Wagner, as well as verismo, in the most renowned opera houses of Europe and America for more than 30 years, including London’s Covent Garden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, the Vienna State Opera, Bayreuth, La Scala in Milan, the Verona Arena, the Salzburg Festival, and the San Francisco and Chicago Operas.

Women at War (Les Combattantes) is a French series created by Camille Treiner and Cécile Lorne starring Audrey Fleurot, Julie De Bona, Camille Lou and, Sofia Essaïdi.

TF1 offers this luxury series in French style which is epic and heroic and tells us the story of four women during World War I.

It is a lavish production as far as scenes and atmosphere created in which we delve into chapter by chapter in a first class recreation led by four women who offer us a choral and polyedric point of view of an epoch.

Women at War (2022)

This is a series that artfully combines genres and, which, in the tradition of the genre, gives its all in the editing and composition that rests on a spectacular soundtrack.

A delight that is a French super production now on Netflix and which will ver surely be enjoued by those who like epic...