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5 items from 2011

20 June 2011 3:44 PM, PDT | The Moving Arts Journal | See recent The Moving Arts Journal news »

Maria Sødahl has made an assured feature debut with Limbo (2010) at the Cinema City film festival, Novi Sad, Serbia. The film was previously screened at Montreal and Thessaloniki. Set in the 1970s, Limbo centres on a Norwegian woman named Sonia who, with her two children, goes to Trinidad to join her husband Joe who is working for an oil company. She receives a warm welcome from the expatriate community, especially the Swedish wife of one of Joe’s colleagues who is happy to find someone who speaks her language.

But Sonia is ill at ease with their new lifestyle, from the uncomfortable décor of their house, with its formal, overbearing housekeeper Mrs. George, to the superficiality of the wives who follow their husbands wherever their temporary contracts lead them. Although her children seem to enjoy the novelty of living on a tropical island, Sonia worries about the strict discipline and »

- Alison Frank

26 April 2011 12:39 PM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »

Chicago – Africa has routinely played a major role in the work of Claire Denis, a French writer/director deservedly hailed as one of the greatest living filmmakers. Her upbringing in colonial Africa certainly proved to be an influence on her 1988 directorial debut, “Chocolat,” as well as 1999’s equally evocative “Beau travail.” Both films centered on protagonists re-connecting with their deep-seated memories of life on the continent.

“White Material” could easily be seen as the completion of a thematic trilogy, though it also stands on its own as a singularly haunting and disturbing work of art. The death of European colonialism is reluctantly witnessed through the eyes of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), a white plantation owner in Africa whose love of the land and devotion to her coffee crop causes her to deny the civil war gradually consuming her country. Even with a gun pointed at her head, Maria’s determination remains unflinching. »

- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

18 April 2011 8:32 AM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »

"African cinema is generally woefully overlooked by the West, and the filmmaking being done in Republic of Chad has been particularly invisible," begins Farihah Zaman in Reverse Shot. "The oversight is not entirely unreasonable; decades of civil war have left the local film industry all but nonexistent — for thirty years there was not even a single movie theater in the entire country. That changed in 2010 when Mahamet-Saleh Haroun won the Cannes Jury Prize for A Screaming Man. His film, the first from his country to screen in competition at the prestigious French festival, now has another distinction, having convinced a government in the midst of war the importance of investing a million dollars in building a movie theater specifically so that it could be shown."

In this "ingenious and moving take on Fw Murnau's classic The Last Laugh," writes the New Yorker's Richard Brody, "Adam (Youssouf Djaoro), a former swimming »

12 April 2011 4:30 PM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

A look at what's new on DVD this week:

"A Summer in Genoa"

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Released by Entertainment One

Of the many films Michael Winterbottom ("A Mighty Heart," "9 Songs") has directed in recent years, you wouldn't guess the one starring recent Oscar winner Colin Firth as a father who must take care of his two daughters in the wake of a car accident involving their mother (Hope Davis) would be the one to have trouble making it to the U.S. But here we are three years after "Genova," as it's known in much of the rest of the world, was shot and it's finally arrived on DVD, a mix of supernatural thriller and human drama that's actually getting reasonably good reviews upon its delayed release. Catherine Keener co-stars.

"Belladonna"

Directed by Annika Glac

Released by Osiris

Glac's debut as a writer/director centers on a man whose »

- Stephen Saito

12 April 2011 5:09 AM, PDT | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »

indieWIRE's Small Screen is now Small Screens, revamped to include new VOD releases. Have suggestions? Email us at editors@indiewire.com. DVD/Blu-ray Top Pick: Title: "White Material" Director: Claire Denis The Deal: Anything French screen icon Isabelle Huppert does is always worth a look. "White Material" marks her first collaboration with Claire Denis, the celebrated French auteur of such films as "Chocolat," "Beau Travail" and "35 Shots of Rum." In Denis' latest, »

5 items from 2011