Film Festival Circuit 2011

[zedz]

Sion Sono seems to be insanely prolific: Venice last year, Cannes, now another Venice entry. I've only just caught up with Cold Fish.

Hong did Cannes / Venice / Cannes, but it looks like he's missed making it four in a row (slacker!)

[puxzkkx]

FYI, at this point that is still speculation - but it looks good! A bit Anglocentric, but it is Venice after all.

[puxzkkx]

I have updated the main post with:

Venice lineup
partial San Sebastian lineup
Moscow jury head
Locarno jury changes

[tavernier]

World premiere of Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn is the Centerpiece.

And the lineup for the Nikkatsu 100th Anniversary sidebar has been announced:

AKANISHI KAKITA(1936) 77min
Director: Mansaku Itami

THE BURMESE HARP(Biruma no Tategoto) (1956) 115min
Director: Kon Ichikawa

CHARISMA(Karisuma) (1999) 103min
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

COLD FISH(Tsumetai Nettaigyo) (2010) 144min
Director: Sion Sono

A COLT IS MY PASSPORT(Colt ha Oreno Passport) (1967) 85min
Director: Takashi Nomura

CRAZED FRUIT(Kurutta Kajitsu) (1956) 86min
Director: Ko Nakahira

DANCER IN IZU(Izo no Odoriko) (1963) 87min
Director: Katsumi Nisikawa

A DIARY OF CHUJI’S TRAVELS(Chiji Tabi Nikki: Part 1 and Part 2) (1927) 107min
Director: Daisuke Ito

EARTH(1939) 92min
Director: Tomu Uchida

GATE OF FLESH(Nikutai no Mon) (1964) 90min
Director: Seijun Suzuki

THE HELL-FATED COURTESAN(Maruhi: Joro Seme Jigoku) (1973) 77min
Director: Noboru Tanaka

HOMETOWN(1930) 86min
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

I LOOK UP WHEN I WALK(aka KEEP YOUR CHIN UP) (Uewo Muite Arukou) (1962) 91min
Director: Toshio Masuda

INTENTIONS OF MURDER(Akai Satsui) (1964) 150min
Director: Shohei Imamura

INTIMIDATION(Aru Kyohaku) (1960) 65min
Director: Koreyosji Kurahara

LOVE HOTEL(1985) 88min
Director: Shinji Somae

MADE TO ORDER CLOTH(aka JIROKICHI THE RAT) (Oatsurae Jirokichi Koshi) (1931) 70min
Director: Daisuke Ito
**Screening with:
JIRAIYA THE NINJA(Goketsu Jiraiya) (1921) 30min
Director: Shozo Makino

MUD AND SOLDIERS(Tsuchi to Heitai) (1936) 120min
Director: Tomotaka Tasaka

THE OLDEST PROFESSION(Maruhi: Shikiyo Mesu Ichiba) (1974) 83min
Director: Noboru Tanaka

PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS(Buta to Gunkan) (1961) 108min
Director: Shohei Imamura

A POT WORTH A MILLION RYO(Tange Sazen Hyakuman Ryou no Tsubo) (1935) 92min
Director: Sadao Yamanaka

RETALIATION(Shima ha Moratta) (1967) 94min
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe

RUSTY KNIFE(Sabita Knife) (1958) 90min
Director: Toshio Masuda

SEASON OF THE SUN(Taiyo no Kisetsu) (1956) 89min
Director: Takumi Furukawa

SINGING LOVE BIRDS(Oshidori Uta Gassen) (1936) 69min
Director: Masahiro Makino

STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER(Noraneko Rock: Sex Hunter) (1970) 86min
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe

SUN IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE SHOGUNATE(aka Shinagawa Path) (Bakumatsu Taiyoden) (1957) 110min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima

SUZUKI PARADISE: RED LIGHT(Suzuki Paradise: Aka Shingo) (1956) 81min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima

TAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN(Jusango Taihisen Yori: Sono Gososha wo Nerae) (1960) 79min
Director: Seijun Suzuki

THE TATTOOED FLOWER VASE(Kashinno Irezumi: Ureta Tsubo) (1979) 74min
Director: Masaru Konuma

TEN NIGHTS OF DREAMS(Yume Juya) (2007) 110min
Director: Various

TILL WE MEET AGAIN(Ashita Kuru Hito) (1955) 115min
Director: Yuzo Kawashima

TOKYO DRIFTER(Tokyo Nagaremono) (1966) 83min
Director: Seijun Suzuki

THE WARPED ONES(1960) 108min
Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara

THE WOMAN WITH RED HAIR(Akai Kami no Onna) (1979) 73min
Director: Tatsumi Kumashiro

A WORLD OF GEISHA(Yojyohan Fusuma no Urabari) (1973) 77min
Director: Tatsumi Kumashiro

[Steven H]

Nice lineup. Good to see Kawashima getting some exposure here. I would be very curious to see what their print of Earth looks like (I thought the only existing versions were marred with German subs).

[Michael Kerpan]

Holy Cow!!!

What a line up of Nikkatsu films -- uou NYers are surely lucky dogs -- I doubt any of these will make it to Boston (or Cambridge) but maybe we'll get lucky too (no way we will get the whole series, however).

I've never seen anything by the senior Itami -- but he was supposed to have been a very fine director.

Jirokichi the Rat is excellent and Ito's Chuji's Travels is supposed to be quite good. Mud and Soldiers is a gritty and surprisingly unpropagandistic (overall) battlefront film (shot on location in China). Pot Worth a Million Ryo is an action-comedy masterpiece. Singing Love Birds is a cute samurai musical -- and Takashi Shimura is one of its stars (I don't recall that HE sings a great deal, however).

I wonder if the most complete version of Uchida's Earth will be shown? (Percent-wise, Japan's most profitable film technically-speaking -- as it was given a budget of 0 Yen following official objections made to Nikkatsu by right-wing bureaucrats. Rather than giving up, it was made off the books, with people donating time, using left-over film stock from other projects, borrowing equipment, etc. Executives at the studio were quite stunned when they found out the film had actually been made -- and then did very well at the box office. Nikkatsu's least welcome hit movie ever).

I don't recall the Mizoguchi Hometown as being an especially strong film

[J Adams]

Are these all verified as 35mm and not digital?

[puxzkkx]

I want to go to there.

[tavernier]

The 49th New York Film Festival main-slate:

Opening Night Gala Selection
CARNAGE
Director: Roman Polanski
Country: France/Germany/Poland

Centerpiece Gala Selection
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
Director: Simon Curtis
Country: UK

Special Gala Presentations
A DANGEROUS METHOD
Director: David Cronenberg
Country: UK/Canada/Germany

THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain

Closing Night Gala Selection
THE DESCENDANTS
Director: Alexander Payne
Country: USA



4:44: LAST DAY ON EARTH
Director: Abel Ferrara
Country: USA

THE ARTIST
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Country: France

CORPO CELESTE
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Country: Italy/Switzerland/France

FOOTNOTE
Director: Joseph Cedar
Country: Israel

GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA

GOODBYE FIRST LOVE
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Country: France/Germany

THE KID WITH A BIKE
Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Country: Belgium/France

LE HAVRE
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Country: Finland/France/Germany

THE LONELIEST PLANET
Director: Julia Loktev
Country: USA/Germany

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
Director: Sean Durkin
Country: USA

MELANCHOLIA
Director: Lars von Trier
Country: Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany/Italy

MISS BALA
Director: Gerardo Naranjo
Country: Mexico

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Country: Turkey

PINA
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: Germany/France/UK

PLAY
Director: Ruben Östlund
Country: Sweden/France/Denmark

POLICEMAN
Director: Nadav Lapid
Country: Israel/France

A SEPARATION
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Country: Iran

SHAME
Director: Steve McQueen
Country: UK

SLEEPING SICKNESS
Director: Ulrich Köhler
Country: Germany/France/Netherlands

THE STUDENT
Director: Santiago Mitre
Country: Argentina

THIS IS NOT A FILM
Director: Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Country: Iran

THE TURIN HORSE
Director: Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky
Country: Hungary/France/Germany/Switzerland/USA

[hearthesilence]

I wonder if I can move into Lincoln Center during those two weeks, à la From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

[Tom Hagen]

That is one stacked lineup.

[zedz]

Of the ones I've seen:

Cold Fish - Slick, nasty and effective serial killer film. Vastly better than the hamfisted I Saw the Devil.

Footnote - Much more entertaining and stylistically flashy than you'd expect given the premise, though ultimately pretty bleak.

The Kid with Bike - More of the same from the Dardennes. Pretty good.

Le Havre - Ditto for Kaurismaki. Better.

Martha Marcy May Marlene - Terrific.

Melancholia - Terrific. Probably Von Trier's best film in a while.

Once upon a Time in Anatolia - Really good. Don't read too much about it beforehand so you can appreciate how it gently twists around.

Pina - Decent enough dance footage, but I've never thought Wenders was that great a documentarian, and he's no better in 3D.

A Separation - Superior melodrama enlivened by its social context, which amplifies every misstep catastrophically. (However, Rasoulof's Goodbye does a lot of the same things and is the better film.)

The Turin Horse - World-stopping masterpiece.

Play & Sleeping Sickness - Didn't see myself, but have heard great things about.

[tavernier]

More special events announced

Masterworks Screenings:
- THE GOLD RUSH, directed by Charlie Chaplin (original 1925 version restored)
- INVASIÓN, directed by Hugo Santiago (restored)
- YOU ARE NOT I, directed by Sara Driver (restored)

Special Anniversary Screenings:
- CASTLE IN THE SKY, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. 25th Anniversary Screening (Celebrating Animation Legend Hayao Miyazaki).
- THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, directed by Luis Buñuel (Mexico): 50 Years of the New York Film Festival
- HOWARDS END, directed by James Ivory. (20 Years of Art Cinema: A Tribute to Sony Pictures Classics)
- THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, directed by Wes Anderson (USA). 10th Anniversary Screening. Presented by New Wave
- SPIRITED AWAY (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Japan). 10th Anniversary Screening (Celebrating Animation Legend Hayao Miyazaki).

Special Presentations: Documentaries:
- ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR, directed by Xan Aranda (USA)
- THE BALLAD OF MOTT THE HOOPLE, directed by Mike Kerry and Chris Hall (UK)
- CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, directed by Alex Stapleton and screening of THE INTRUDER, directed by Roger Corman
- CRAZY HORSE, directed by Frederick Wiseman (USA, France)
- DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH, directed by Susan Ray (USA)
- MUSIC ACCORDING TO TOM JOBIM, directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos (Brazil)
- PARADISE 3: PURGATORY, directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (USA)
- PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD), directed by Grant Gee (UK)
- TAHRIR, directed by Stefano Savona (France/Italy)
- VITO, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (USA)

Special Events:
- THE 99 - UNBOUND, directed by Dave Osborne
- A Conversation with Susan Orlean: "Rin Tin Tin, the Life and the Legend" with Noel Smith’s CLASH OF THE WOLVES screening.
- Dreilebenpart 1 – 3: Beats Being Dead, directed by Christian Petzold; Don't Follow Me Around, directed by Dominik Graf; - One Minute of Darkness, directed by Christoph Hochhäusler (Germany)
- FROM MORNING TILL MIDNIGHT (Von morgens bis Mitternacht), directed by Karl Heinz Martin (Germany) with Alloy Orchestra and A TRIP TO THE MOON, directed by George Melies.
- Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States. Screening of the first 3 chapters of TV series with panel discussion featuring Oliver Stone, co-writer Peter Kuznick, historian Douglas Brinkley (Rice University) and journalist Jonathan Schell (The Nation).
- "Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark" with James Toback’s FINGERS, directed by James Toback. Panel discussion with David Edelstein (Film Critic, New York magazine), Brian Kellow, Geoffrey O’Brien (Editor in Chief, Library of America), James Toback, Camille Paglia (University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies, University of the Arts), plus screening of Fingers, directed by James Toback
- Sodankylä Forever Parts 1-4, directed by Peter Von Bagh (Finland)

[matrixschmatrix]

I wonder if that restored '25 version of The Gold Rush means anything with respect to Criterion's disc?

[zedz]

And I wonder if it's been reunited with the original score, which Timothy Brock recently reconstructed?

[tavernier]

More specifics:

Masterworks: THE GOLD RUSH
Chaplin’s personal favorite among his own films, THE GOLD RUSH (1925), is a beautifully constructed comic fable of fate and perseverance, set in the icy wastes of the Alaskan gold fields. Re-released by Chaplin in 1942 in a recut version missing some scenes, and with added narration and musical score, THE GOLD RUSH will be presented in a new restoration of the original, silent 1925 version. In this frequently terrifying and always unpredictable universe of natural and human savagery packed with avalanches, wild bears, predatory dance hall girls and murderous claim-jumpers, the incomparable Gentleman-Tramp arrives, seeking his fortune and facing every imaginable threat to life and limb. The film contains one of Chaplin's classic comic set pieces in which he elegantly cooks and eats his boot to fend off starvation. THE GOLD RUSH blends action, slapstick comedy and sentiment seamlessly, making it one of the most beloved of Charles Chaplin’s works. The screening features a new score restoration by Timothy Brock (his ninth, commissioned by the Chaplin Estate) live musical accompaniment conducted by Brock and performed by musicians from the NY Philharmonic.

[Cold Bishop]

Hopefully this phases out the awful 1942 version from distribution. Every time I see this film booked at a theater (which has happened perhaps more than any other silent film, save maybe Nosferatu or Metropolis), it's always followed by the crushing disappointment of discovering it's the re-edit.

[matrixschmatrix]

If the Chaplin estate commissioned the score restoration, that seems like a good sign- as I recall, it was their insistence that kept the '42 version on top.

[DDillaman]

Views from the Avant-Garde schedule posted.

Anyone have any recommendations? I'm super-eager to see the Dorsky, and have heard good things about Reeves and Grenier, but am sort of at a loss beyond that ... there's some iconic names (Klahr, Kuchar, Straub, Gehr) that I've seen nothing by. I'll be gone by the time the Benning rolls around, sadly.

[Phil]

Obviously all the directors you mentioned are essential viewing. Haven't seen any of these, but based on directors, here's ten can't miss Views titles for me:

Longhorn Tremolo (Scott Stark)
Between Gold (Jonathan Schwartz)
The Matter Propounded, of its Possibility or Impossibility, treated in four Parts (David Gatten)
Line Describing Your Mom (Michael Robinson)
A Lax Riddle Unit (Laida Lertxundi)
Toujour moins (Luc Moullet)
Quality Control (Kevin Everson)
Devil's Gate (Laura Kraning)
Sounding Glass (Sylvia Schedelbauer)
arcana (Henry Hills)

[AlexHansen]

Ben Rivers as well.

[Phil]

Ben Rivers as well.

Slow Action is available to stream online; and yes, highly recommended.

[puxzkkx]

Updated with Locarno, Montréal, complete SS lineup and some other tidbits.

[ianungstad]

Ides of March is getting pretty mixed reviews, most critics being somewhat positive.

Polanski's Carnage is also getting mixed reviews. A lot of critics are finding the film to be slight and has some stage to screen translation issues.

Haven't seen many reviews of W.E. yet...

[Duncan Hopper]

Haven't seen many reviews of W.E. yet...

A rave!