The filmmakers behind Poland’s official entry in the international feature film Oscar race, “Never Gonna Snow Again,” say they will be following in the footsteps of Polish winners and nominees like Paweł Pawlikowski and Jan Komasa (“Corpus Christi”). Academy voters watching their international film screeners at home should have plenty of time to catch the film before it’s released by Kino Lorber in the spring.
Malgorzata Szumowska (“Body”) co-wrote and co-directed with cinematographer Michał Englert, who makes his directorial debut. The story follows Alec Utgoff as Zhenia, a guru-like masseur who travels within an affluent neighborhood and meets clients, who open up to him about their lives. Englert uses wide framing as Zhenia makes his rounds, often appearing seemingly out of nowhere. “He is mysterious and had an air of secrecy to him,” Englert says. The inspiration, Szumowska notes, was a real-life masseur who wandered from house to...
Malgorzata Szumowska (“Body”) co-wrote and co-directed with cinematographer Michał Englert, who makes his directorial debut. The story follows Alec Utgoff as Zhenia, a guru-like masseur who travels within an affluent neighborhood and meets clients, who open up to him about their lives. Englert uses wide framing as Zhenia makes his rounds, often appearing seemingly out of nowhere. “He is mysterious and had an air of secrecy to him,” Englert says. The inspiration, Szumowska notes, was a real-life masseur who wandered from house to...
- 12/17/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
“Never Gonna Snow Again,” which was chosen as Poland’s Oscar submission prior to its world premiere in Venice, marks a further step in cinematographer Michał Englert’s long collaboration with Małgorzata Szumowska. It started in the 1990s with her short “Silence,” followed by her feature debut “Happy Man” in 2000, and continues with “Never Gonna Snow Again,” with Englert serving as both cinematographer and co-director, alongside Szumowska, on the film.
“Our way of working, or our sense of humor, hasn’t really changed. Although the scope of my involvement is constantly expanding,” says Englert, who has been developing screenplays with Szumowska since 2013’s “In the Name Of,” and describes their process as “instinctive.”
“I definitely have an ego, but you can’t make movies all by yourself and in the case of ‘Never Gonna Snow Again’ we decided its power will be bigger if we sign it as a directorial duo.
“Our way of working, or our sense of humor, hasn’t really changed. Although the scope of my involvement is constantly expanding,” says Englert, who has been developing screenplays with Szumowska since 2013’s “In the Name Of,” and describes their process as “instinctive.”
“I definitely have an ego, but you can’t make movies all by yourself and in the case of ‘Never Gonna Snow Again’ we decided its power will be bigger if we sign it as a directorial duo.
- 11/15/2020
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Malgorzata Szumowska, best director winner at the Berlin Film Festival for “Body,” has started shooting “Wonder Zenia,” starring “Stranger Things” actor Alec Utgoff, on location in and around Warsaw.
Utgoff, who played Alexei in the third season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and also appeared in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” stars in the title role in “Wonder Zenia.” The film also stars Agata Kulesza, who played “Red Wanda” in Oscar-winner “Ida,” Maja Ostaszewska (“Body”), Weronika Rosati and Katarzyna Figura.
Zenia, the film’s protagonist, is an industrious Ukrainian migrant worker in Poland who makes house calls as a masseur to the needy and aspirational residents of a middle-class gated community near Warsaw. He is privy to all of their problems, anxieties and secrets – and something of an unwitting guru figure. Zenia’s grounded spirituality, apparent healing powers and broad shoulders make him an object of lust for many of the lost souls in the community.
Utgoff, who played Alexei in the third season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and also appeared in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” stars in the title role in “Wonder Zenia.” The film also stars Agata Kulesza, who played “Red Wanda” in Oscar-winner “Ida,” Maja Ostaszewska (“Body”), Weronika Rosati and Katarzyna Figura.
Zenia, the film’s protagonist, is an industrious Ukrainian migrant worker in Poland who makes house calls as a masseur to the needy and aspirational residents of a middle-class gated community near Warsaw. He is privy to all of their problems, anxieties and secrets – and something of an unwitting guru figure. Zenia’s grounded spirituality, apparent healing powers and broad shoulders make him an object of lust for many of the lost souls in the community.
- 12/16/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Chicago – The recently completed 52nd Chicago International Film Festival offered a world perspective on cinema, and honors the films that will influence the arts culture for years to come. Their Awards Night was October 21st, 2016, and was hosted by Richard Roeper, film critic of the Chicago Sun Times. The recipient of the top prize of the fest, the Gold Hugo, was “Sieranevada” (Romania), directed by Cristi Puiu.
The 52nd Chicago International Film Festival Awards Night was Oct. 21, 2016
Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival
The awards event took place at the AMC River East Theatre. Presenters included Programming Director Mimi Plauché, programmers Anthony Kaufman and Sam Flancher, plus various jury members – which included Geraldine Chapman (actress and daughter of Charlie Chaplin), who presided over the International Feature Film Competition Jury. Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com sat on the Animation Shorts jury. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named...
The 52nd Chicago International Film Festival Awards Night was Oct. 21, 2016
Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival
The awards event took place at the AMC River East Theatre. Presenters included Programming Director Mimi Plauché, programmers Anthony Kaufman and Sam Flancher, plus various jury members – which included Geraldine Chapman (actress and daughter of Charlie Chaplin), who presided over the International Feature Film Competition Jury. Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com sat on the Animation Shorts jury. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named...
- 10/30/2016
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Venice International Film Festival
VENICE, Italy -- There are said to be 51 mysteries in Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn's masterpiece "The Night Watch" and British writer and director Peter Greenaway sets out to explain all of them in his richly detailed but lumbering and theatrical drama "Nightwatching".
Most of the scenes are interiors with performers facing the camera with Martin Freeman portraying Rembrandt as a very talkative and lecherous 17th century English fashion photographer or film director. There's lots of male and female frontal nudity and a lexicon of filthy words as the artist expresses himself with his beloved wife and then two successive lovers.
It's doubtful that the film could be used in schools and the cloistered art history lesson, screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, is likely to fall on deaf ears anywhere beyond festivals and the occasional art house.
The 1642 painting was supposed to be the usual thing of the day featuring city bigwigs posing as the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait. But the artist discovered scurrilous things about the pompous merchants involving child prostitution and murder, and he used the painting to make a public accusation.
Greenaway takes plenty of time establishing the characters who will be involved in the painting although it's not always clear which is which. It is apparent that bad things are happening at an orphanage where a rich man named Rombout Kemp (Christopher Britton) and his acolytes use the young girls for sexual favors. One of them, Marieke (Nathalie Press), shows up on Rembrandt's roof one day claiming to be an angel but she's there to tell the sorry story of her sisters.
Meanwhile, there's a murder at a gathering of the merchants playing at being militia and Rembrandt becomes increasingly outraged at the cover-up. He determines to reveal all in his commissioned painting.
He is an unmade bed of a man who adores his doomed but fatalistic wife Saskia (Eva Birthistle) and grieves mightily when she dies. At hand, however, is a servant named Geertje (Jodhi May), whose vivid sensuality soon has him captivated, followed by the more sedate but equally responsive Hendrickje (Emily Holmes).
There are 34 people in the painting and all of them show up at Rembrandt's door to pose, beseech, complain or threaten. Each scene is presented as on a stage, even the exteriors, and the impact is claustrophobic. Birthistle, May and Holmes perform bravely and so does Freeman although his Rembrandt sounds a bit too much like someone from a British TV sitcom.
NIGHTWATCHING
Aria Films, Bac Films
Credits:
Director, writer: Peter Greenaway
Producer: Kees Kasander
Executive producers: Jamie Carmichael, Grzegorz Hajdarowicz, Larry Sugar
Director of photography: Reinier van Brummelen
Production designer: Maarten Piersma
Music: Wlodek Pawlik
Co-producers: Carlo Dusi, Christine Haebler, Piotr Mularuk
Costume designers: Jagna Janicka, Marrit van der Burgt
Editor: Karen Porter
Cast:
Rembrandt van Rijn: Martin Freeman
Hendrickje: Emily Holmes
Geertje: Jodhi May
Saskia: Eva Birthistle
Gerard Dou: Toby Jones
Marieke: Nathalie Press
Carel Fabritius: Michael Teigen
Rombout Kemp: Christopher Britton
Banning Cocq: Adrian Lukas
Willem van Ruytenburgh: Adam Kotz
Bloefeldt: Richard McCabe
Engelen: Kevin McNulty
Egremont: Maciej Zakoscielny
Running time -- 134 minutes
No MPAA rating...
VENICE, Italy -- There are said to be 51 mysteries in Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn's masterpiece "The Night Watch" and British writer and director Peter Greenaway sets out to explain all of them in his richly detailed but lumbering and theatrical drama "Nightwatching".
Most of the scenes are interiors with performers facing the camera with Martin Freeman portraying Rembrandt as a very talkative and lecherous 17th century English fashion photographer or film director. There's lots of male and female frontal nudity and a lexicon of filthy words as the artist expresses himself with his beloved wife and then two successive lovers.
It's doubtful that the film could be used in schools and the cloistered art history lesson, screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, is likely to fall on deaf ears anywhere beyond festivals and the occasional art house.
The 1642 painting was supposed to be the usual thing of the day featuring city bigwigs posing as the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait. But the artist discovered scurrilous things about the pompous merchants involving child prostitution and murder, and he used the painting to make a public accusation.
Greenaway takes plenty of time establishing the characters who will be involved in the painting although it's not always clear which is which. It is apparent that bad things are happening at an orphanage where a rich man named Rombout Kemp (Christopher Britton) and his acolytes use the young girls for sexual favors. One of them, Marieke (Nathalie Press), shows up on Rembrandt's roof one day claiming to be an angel but she's there to tell the sorry story of her sisters.
Meanwhile, there's a murder at a gathering of the merchants playing at being militia and Rembrandt becomes increasingly outraged at the cover-up. He determines to reveal all in his commissioned painting.
He is an unmade bed of a man who adores his doomed but fatalistic wife Saskia (Eva Birthistle) and grieves mightily when she dies. At hand, however, is a servant named Geertje (Jodhi May), whose vivid sensuality soon has him captivated, followed by the more sedate but equally responsive Hendrickje (Emily Holmes).
There are 34 people in the painting and all of them show up at Rembrandt's door to pose, beseech, complain or threaten. Each scene is presented as on a stage, even the exteriors, and the impact is claustrophobic. Birthistle, May and Holmes perform bravely and so does Freeman although his Rembrandt sounds a bit too much like someone from a British TV sitcom.
NIGHTWATCHING
Aria Films, Bac Films
Credits:
Director, writer: Peter Greenaway
Producer: Kees Kasander
Executive producers: Jamie Carmichael, Grzegorz Hajdarowicz, Larry Sugar
Director of photography: Reinier van Brummelen
Production designer: Maarten Piersma
Music: Wlodek Pawlik
Co-producers: Carlo Dusi, Christine Haebler, Piotr Mularuk
Costume designers: Jagna Janicka, Marrit van der Burgt
Editor: Karen Porter
Cast:
Rembrandt van Rijn: Martin Freeman
Hendrickje: Emily Holmes
Geertje: Jodhi May
Saskia: Eva Birthistle
Gerard Dou: Toby Jones
Marieke: Nathalie Press
Carel Fabritius: Michael Teigen
Rombout Kemp: Christopher Britton
Banning Cocq: Adrian Lukas
Willem van Ruytenburgh: Adam Kotz
Bloefeldt: Richard McCabe
Engelen: Kevin McNulty
Egremont: Maciej Zakoscielny
Running time -- 134 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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