Early in writer-director Jim Strouse’s Love Again, music journalist Rob Burns (Sam Heughan) receives his latest assignment: a profile on Celine Dion as she embarks on a new tour. When Rob, a defiantly unsentimental Scottish bloke, scoffs at the gig, his editor (Steve Oram) fires back by declaring that Dion is in the midst of a “Celine-aissance.” The legitimacy of that statement is debatable, but Dion is at least experiencing something of a cinematic boomlet, between the gonzo fictionalized biopic Aline and references in films as diverse as Turning Red and Queens of the Qing Dynasty.
In any case, Dion is the selling point of Love Again, with the Canadian pop superstar executive producing, performing new songs for the soundtrack, and co-starring as herself. The central narrative of this syrupy-sweet romantic-comedy, however, follows the romantic entanglements of Rob and grieving children’s book illustrator Mira Ray (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Two years ago,...
In any case, Dion is the selling point of Love Again, with the Canadian pop superstar executive producing, performing new songs for the soundtrack, and co-starring as herself. The central narrative of this syrupy-sweet romantic-comedy, however, follows the romantic entanglements of Rob and grieving children’s book illustrator Mira Ray (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Two years ago,...
- 5/5/2023
- by Mark Hanson
- Slant Magazine
Canadian director Ashley McKenzie’s two features pivot around people caught up in traps. She’s a regional filmmaker, making work based in the communities of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton island, which is home to 132,000 people. Her 2016 debut, Werewolf, followed a couple of opioid addicts struggling to live on methadone maintenance. Her long-awaited follow-up Queens of the Qing Dynasty, opening this Friday at NYC’s Metrograph, begins with a suicide attempt by an 18-year-old girl, Star (Sarah Walker). Although she’s just begun life as an adult, she will likely require a lifetime of institutionalization, as the state has determined that it’s too dangerous for her to live on her own. She befriends hospital volunteer An (Ziyin Zheng), a genderqueer college student from Shanghai.
Most of Queens of the Qing Dynasty remains confined to the uninviting spaces of the hospital, but the final half-hour shows the possibilities of...
Most of Queens of the Qing Dynasty remains confined to the uninviting spaces of the hospital, but the final half-hour shows the possibilities of...
- 5/3/2023
- by Steve Erickson
- The Film Stage
Canadian filmmaker Ashley Mackenzie keeps audiences on their toes as she takes a decidely different turn with her sophomore feature, Queens of the Qing Dynasty. Staying with the lives of those living somewhat on the margins, either culturally or socially, in towns far away from the centre of the action, she's carving a unique place with her style and subject matter. Her characters are perhaps somewhat lost, sometimes alone, yet able to find connections where ones do not seem obvious. Shooting in and around where she grew up in Cape Breton, Mackenzie's film evoke a naturalness, and a natural strangeness, that's present in places where it's often more trouble to hide who you really are. After a successful festival run including Berlinale and TIFF, the...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 4/28/2023
- Screen Anarchy
The summer season is upon us and, per each year, we’ve dug beyond studio offerings (though a few potential highlights remain) to present an in-depth look at what should be on your radar. From festival winners of the past year to selections coming straight from Cannes to genre delights to, yes, a few blockbuster spectacles, there’s more than enough to anticipate.
Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar.
Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim; May 2)
So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) didn’t want to leave South Korea. She had no choice. The father of her newborn son committed suicide and, as an orphan who was never adopted, she had no other family. So, with nowhere to turn and a boy who couldn’t legally become a citizen due to being born out of wedlock, she immigrated to Canada to start anew.
Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar.
Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim; May 2)
So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) didn’t want to leave South Korea. She had no choice. The father of her newborn son committed suicide and, as an orphan who was never adopted, she had no other family. So, with nowhere to turn and a boy who couldn’t legally become a citizen due to being born out of wedlock, she immigrated to Canada to start anew.
- 4/25/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
One of the films we hoped would get distribution at the start of the year was Ashley McKenzie’s Werewolf follow-up Queens of the Qing Dynasty, a selection at Berlinale, TIFF, and NYFF. Thankfully, Factory 25 has come to the rescue and will debut the queer coming-of-age drama starting on May 5 at NYC’s Metrograph. Ahead of the release the new trailer and poster have arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “Following a failed suicide attempt, introverted smalltown teenager Star (Sarah Walker) is subjected to constant invasive monitoring that does little to help her—until her encounter with An (Ziyin Zheng), a similarly genderqueer international student from Shanghai who’s been assigned to watch her in hospital, offers an unexpected chance for connection. Their blossoming relationship—two kindred spirits meeting across spectrums of culture, queerness, and neurodiversity—unfolds with alchemic crackle, leading up to a deeply moving denouement.”
Jared Mobarak said in his review,...
Here’s the synopsis: “Following a failed suicide attempt, introverted smalltown teenager Star (Sarah Walker) is subjected to constant invasive monitoring that does little to help her—until her encounter with An (Ziyin Zheng), a similarly genderqueer international student from Shanghai who’s been assigned to watch her in hospital, offers an unexpected chance for connection. Their blossoming relationship—two kindred spirits meeting across spectrums of culture, queerness, and neurodiversity—unfolds with alchemic crackle, leading up to a deeply moving denouement.”
Jared Mobarak said in his review,...
- 4/18/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Canadian Screen Week is officially underway — it’s the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television’s annual week-long celebration of the best in Canadian film, TV and digital media. With in-person ceremonies returning for the first time since 2019, nominees across 145 categories are being honoured over four days of live award shows at Toronto’s Meridian Hall. It’s all leading up to a star-studded broadcast hosted by Samantha Bee on Sunday night, when the winner of the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award will be revealed.
The hour-long special, which airs at 8 p.m. Et on CBC and CBC Gem, will look back at the past year in Canadian film and TV. Also on tap? Interviews with this year’s slate of Special Award recipients — which includes Canadian icons like Catherine O’Hara, Ryan Reynolds and Simu Liu — along with special guests Amy Poehler, Lamar Johnson, “White Lotus” star Adam Dimarco and more.
The hour-long special, which airs at 8 p.m. Et on CBC and CBC Gem, will look back at the past year in Canadian film and TV. Also on tap? Interviews with this year’s slate of Special Award recipients — which includes Canadian icons like Catherine O’Hara, Ryan Reynolds and Simu Liu — along with special guests Amy Poehler, Lamar Johnson, “White Lotus” star Adam Dimarco and more.
- 4/13/2023
- by Etcanadadigital
- ET Canada
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSOn the Adamant.The Berlinale wrapped up over the weekend. The Golden Bear was awarded to Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant, while other major prizes went to Christian Petzold, Philippe Garrel, Angela Schanelec, and Dp Hélène Louvart. You can browse the full list of winners on Notebook, and keep your eyes peeled for our reports.In other festival news: Ruben Östlund will preside over this year’s Cannes jury, and the full lineup has been unveiled for Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA’s New Directors/New Films.The pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye—the first African woman to make a commercially distributed feature film—died last week at the age of 80. Writer and programmer Yasmina Price recently surfaced a thread of archival material,...
- 2/28/2023
- MUBI
While we’re in the middle of the fall festival season, with Telluride, Venice, and TIFF in the rearview, and NYFF, BFI London, and AFI Fest on the horizon, it’s time to round up some of our early favorites. We’ve polled our contributors from Venice and TIFF to share their top picks, which one can see below along with our ongoing coverage here.
David Katz (@davidfabiankatz)
1. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
2. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)
5. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
6. Love Life (Kôji Fukada)
7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)
9. In Viaggio (Gianfranco Rosi)
10. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks)
1. Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
2. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
5. Athena (Romain Gavras)
6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach)
7. The Banshees of Inisherin...
David Katz (@davidfabiankatz)
1. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
2. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)
5. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
6. Love Life (Kôji Fukada)
7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)
9. In Viaggio (Gianfranco Rosi)
10. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks)
1. Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
2. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
5. Athena (Romain Gavras)
6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach)
7. The Banshees of Inisherin...
- 9/21/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Concrete Valley.Hopefully you’ve been following along, but over the last decade there’s been a wonderful surge of young Canadian directors making exceptional short- and feature-length movies, all on a small, independent scale that should be invigorating to makers and audiences alike. While no one would (nor should) ascribe any kind of movement label to them, being eclectic in origins and approaches, it has been notable how many of the films hinge upon explorations of mental health, the search for well-being, and the weaknesses and strengths of community. Films as disparate as the substance abuse and social work documentary The Stairs (2016), the immersive impressionism of mental anguish of Anne at 13,000 Ft. (2019), and this year's Queens of the Qing Dynasty (2022), a striking story of social difference, hospitalization, and friendship filmed in Cape Breton, are among these adroit new Canadian films fueled by human inquiry and empathy.This note is...
- 9/17/2022
- MUBI
Ashley McKenzie, the Nova Scotia-based director of the elliptical and scarifyingly intimate methadone-addiction drama “Werewolf,” returns with another tale of codependence and the Canadian welfare state. Talking to Film Comment in 2018, McKenzie copped to a desire “to have more extensive scenes and more elaborate choreography and staging” in future projects and hinted at her then-gestating second feature. “The elevator pitch would probably say ‘Certain Women’ meets Alan Clarke BBC portrait dramas,” she said.
And so it is: “Queens of the Qing Dynasty,” about a neurodivergent teenager hospitalized following a(nother) suicide attempt, and the genderqueer Chinese-immigrant advocate she bonds with during her recovery, is at once rigorously intimate and richly symbolic.
Continue reading ‘Queens of the Qing Dynasty’ Review: Ashley McKenzie Crafts An Intimate And Rich Story of Friendship [TIFF] at The Playlist.
And so it is: “Queens of the Qing Dynasty,” about a neurodivergent teenager hospitalized following a(nother) suicide attempt, and the genderqueer Chinese-immigrant advocate she bonds with during her recovery, is at once rigorously intimate and richly symbolic.
Continue reading ‘Queens of the Qing Dynasty’ Review: Ashley McKenzie Crafts An Intimate And Rich Story of Friendship [TIFF] at The Playlist.
- 9/10/2022
- by Mark Asch
- The Playlist
Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital Redux (1988/2022).Returning to the Toronto International Film Festival after a three-year personal pandemic pause—the event took place virtually in 2020 and in a hybrid edition last year—the promise of the end of summer event is as clear as it's ever been: a bounty of movies, 203 features in total, in theaters with audiences, and a hopeful return to moviegoing normality. The only major festival to simultaneously emphasize top-level highlights that premiered elsewhere during the year, along with its own selection of world premieres, the approach emphasizes the festival’s image as audience oriented, rather than prioritizing the industry. With so many films, a defined programming line is impossible and the main hope must be to try and be all things to all audiences. As an incredibly large and multifaceted cultural institution, such a broad remit is best suited to face the pressure to cater to diverse needs,...
- 9/10/2022
- MUBI
Following the Main Slate and Spotlight announcements, the 60th New York Film Festival has unveiled its Currents section. The slate of boundary-pushing work features Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, João Pedro Rodrigues’ Will-o’-the-Wisp, Helena Wittmann’s Human Flowers of Flesh, Alessandro Comodin’s The Adventures of Gigi the Law, Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós’s Dry Ground Burning, Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, and Ashley McKenzie’s Queens of the Qing Dynasty, plus new shorts by Bi Gan, Mark Jenkin, Simón Velez, Nicolás Pereda, Courtney Stephens, Ben Russell, and more.
“Each Currents lineup is an attempt to distill the spirit of innovation and playfulness in contemporary cinema, and this is, by design, the most expansive section of the festival,” said Dennis Lim, artistic director, New York Film Festival. “There are familiar names here—including multiple filmmakers who will be known to NYFF and Flc audiences—as well as some electrifying new talents,...
“Each Currents lineup is an attempt to distill the spirit of innovation and playfulness in contemporary cinema, and this is, by design, the most expansive section of the festival,” said Dennis Lim, artistic director, New York Film Festival. “There are familiar names here—including multiple filmmakers who will be known to NYFF and Flc audiences—as well as some electrifying new talents,...
- 8/18/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Queens of the Qing Dynasty is writer-director Ashley McKenzie’s long-awaited follow-up to Werewolf (2016), her auspicious first feature, and one of the most acclaimed Canadian debuts of recent years. Like Werewolf, Queens is set on McKenzie’s native Cape Breton Island, off the East Coast of Nova Scotia. And like that film, it is essentially a two-hander, following a pair of entwined lives with an at times disconcerting intimacy. When first introduced, 18-year-old Star (Sarah Walker) has been admitted to a hospital for ingesting poison, though we quickly surmise that she has been in and out of hospitals and social welfare institutions for much of her life. Meanwhile, An (Ziyin Zheng), a Chinese expatriate volunteering at a local hospital to accrue immigration points, has been assigned to her case. The strange, symbiotic relationship that soon develops between the two provides the film with its unpredictable, live-wire energy.In its approach to psychology and character subjectivity,...
- 2/27/2022
- MUBI
Our introductions to writer/director Ashley McKenzie’s leads in Queens of the Qing Dynasty are not to be forgotten. Whether Star’s (Sarah Walker) open-mouthed and fully dilated thousand-yard stare in a hospital bed after her latest suicide attempt (this time for drinking poison) or An’s (Ziyin Zheng) voice regaling the women nurses with a Chinese song while their supervisor drawls “Old Macdonald” in response, the notion that we’re dealing with two eccentrics in a world that may never understand them is abundantly clear. It’s therefore only right that they’d end up being put on a collision course ignited by duty (An’s hospital volunteer is assigned Star’s evening suicide watch) yet sustained by genuine intrigue. They share their deepest secrets without judgement, ultimately discovering things about themselves along the way.
It’s through these late-night sessions that they begin to question the roads...
It’s through these late-night sessions that they begin to question the roads...
- 2/24/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
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