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David Schickele’s Bushman opens with Gabriel (Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam), a young Nigerian immigrant, walking down a San Francisco highway and conspicuously balancing a pair of shoes on his head while trying to thumb a ride. The image announces the film’s neorealist intentions, alluding to postwar Italian films’ on-location, street-oriented settings, and even puns on the title of Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine. Which isn’t to say that Bushman intends to turn neorealism on its head exactly. Rather, it aims to consider how the contexts the bred neorealism might relate to the late-1960s, when the United States was at war in Vietnam and Nigeria was in year two of a civil war following its decolonization in 1960.

After a playful opening sequence in which Gabriel is picked up by a motorcyclist (Mike Slyre) who looks as though he just stepped off the set of Easy Rider, the...

U.K. distributor Other Parties has launched a new production arm headed by former Amazon Studios U.K. exec Emily Guarino.

Guarino, who was most recently head of business affairs at Amazon Studios, will be the new CEO of Other Parties Productions, working alongside Other Parties founder and director of distribution Aneet Nijjar. The duo previously collaborated during film industry development program Inside Pictures.

Guarino has over two decades of experience developing and producing content, having begin her career at NBCUniversal’s international studio in London. She went on to head up legal and business affairs at A+E Networks Emea and most recently the European Originals Business Affairs team at Amazon Studios’ London HQ.

Other Parties Film Company launched in 2021 and quickly assembled a dynamic team including co-founder Aduke King, who oversees acquisition and development, former Wunderman and Thompson exec Tom Lancaster and Esmé Gartside, who heads communications.

The company...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSGuy Maddin’s next film, Rumours, recently wrapped production in Hungary. The ensemble piece is led by Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, who play world leaders who end up stranded in a forest during the annual G7 summit. Maddin has shared a breathless, spoof press release (below) announcing the film, describing the project as “an elevated dramedy and erotico-political threnody cum sylvan moodbank.”Paul Thomas Anderson is also at work on something new. So far, all we know is that his project is set in the present day and will star Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Regina Hall. Production begins in California later this year.Recommended VIEWINGOne of the most exciting rediscoveries of the 2023 Il Cinema Ritrovato festival was the restoration of David Schickele’s Bushman...