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by Nathaniel R

Kelvin Harrison Jr stars in "Chevalier"

The Toronto International Film Festival runs September 8th through 18th this year. Of "the Big Five" festivals Toronto doesn't have a traditional competition lineup with juries... though their audience award winners tend to get a lot of "Oscar-bound" style press. Like those other festivals they having very exciting lineups for cinephiles. If the titles showing at Venice (which happens just before it) and TIFF are as enticing as they sound, 2022 is going to explode in cinematic quality. What follows is a list of their Galas and Special Presentations though it's worth noting that TIFF usually has hundreds of movies so this is only the two most high profile programs that they've announced. 

Gala Presentations

These are the high profile films, usually with movie stars, that are getting the full red carpet glitzy treatment. Usually they're either World Premieres or Canadian premieres...

The fun part about dissecting TIFF’s Gala and Special Presentations unveiling are what titles are skipping TIFF, which titles are moving directly from Venice to Toronto, and which titles favored a Telluride splash. What we learned is that hotly anticipated projects in Peter Farrelly‘s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Hong Sang-soo‘s Walk Up, Tobias Lindholm‘s The Good Nurse, Stephen Williams‘ Chevalier and Apple’s new acquisition in Lila Neugebauer‘s debut Causeway will have their world preems in Toronto. The alarming Venice-selected non-mentions today in Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), White Noise, Blonde, TÁR, Bones and All and Monica could very-well be skipping Toronto altogether.…...

“The Toronto Film Festival is back!,” one specialty distributor told me last week. After two years of a slimmed-down pandemic profile, Canada’s storied Festival of Festivals has filled out to its former sprawl, with a glittering lineup packed with awards hopefuls.

TIFF has long offered gala world premieres for A-list filmmakers heading into awards prime time. Steven Spielberg is not usually one of them. This time, TIFF persuaded Universal and Amblin to give Spielberg’s personal fable “The Fabelmans” a shot at winning the coveted People’s Choice award that often presages a Best Picture contender, from Bp winners “The King’s Speech” and “12 Years a Slave” to “Green Book” and “Nomadland.” Last year, Kenneth Branagh’s personal story “Belfast” took home the audience prize.

Oscar perennial Searchlight Pictures is taking four fall season movies to TIFF, including Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light”, which is expected to play Telluride...

New works by directors Sam Mendes, Sarah Polley, Tyler Perry, Darren Aronofsky and Reginald Hudlin will screen at the 2022 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, an annual celebration of cinema that serves as one of the unofficial kickoffs to the film awards season.

After two years spent hosting largely virtual or dramatically pared-down events as a concession to Covid, Toronto, or TIFF as it is known around the entertainment business, is looking to offer up a full-fledged, week-and-a-half-long spotlight of the best of moviemaking.

“We’re going to have the fan excitement, the big audiences, the big movies launching and the red carpets,” TIFF’s CEO Cameron Bailey told Variety. “If that sounds like a familiar Toronto Film Festival, that’s what we’re going to have this year.”

As Tinseltown decamps for Canada, it will once again be feted with glittering premieres, celebrity panels and packed auditoriums of...

Eighteen galas, 45 special presentations unveiled for 47th edition of Toronto festival.

Stephen Frears’ drama The Lost King starring Sally Hawkins and Steve Coogan, Shekhar Kapur’s comedy What’s Love Got to Do With It? with Lily James and Emma Thompson and Apple’s Jennifer Lawrence drama Causeway from Lila Neugebauer are among this year’s gala and special presentations for the Toronto International Film Festival.

Further previously unannounced world premiere selections include Richard Eyre’s hospital drama Allelujah (pictured) from Pathé with Jennifer Saunders and Judi Dench, Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain in Tobias Lindholm’s Netflix true-life crime drama The Good Nurse,...

The 2022 TIFF lineup features new films from Tyler Perry, Peter Farrelly, Sam Mendes, Catherine Hardwicke, Martin McDonagh, Sarah Polley, Henry Selick, Stephen Frears and many more.

In all, 18 Galas and 45 Special Presentations were unveiled as part of the 47th Annual Toronto International Film Festival lineup, with 38 of the total films announced on Thursday slated to world premiere at the festival.

Among the Gala presentations are Farrelly’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” his follow-up film after winning the audience prize at TIFF for “Green Book.” There’s also Tyler Perry’s “A Jazzman’s Blues,” Paul Weitz’s “Moving On” with Jane Fonda, and “Sidney” from Reginald Hudlin.

Those join previously announced titles such as “The Woman King” starring Viola Davis and the opening night film “The Swimmers” from Sally El Hosaini. Lee Jung-jae’s “Hunt,” which first premiered at Cannes, will also receive a Gala presentation, as will “The Son” from Florian Zeller,...

Ahead of November’s World’s Strongest Man 2020 competition, the organization has launched its first Snapchat show, World’s Strongest Man: Home Edition. A teaser episode of what’s to come will be offered every Monday on Snapchat’s Discover page for the next 11 weeks.

Eight of the world’s most popular strongmen will each compete in two rounds of unique and entertaining feats of strength. Each match-up will consist of a determined strength move which competitors are encouraged to complete with imaginative items that can be found at home, like a couch, a car, or a pet.

Fans will be able to swipe up at the end of each episode and vote for their favorite competitor based on performance and creativity. Voting will take place on the World’s Strongest Man: Home Edition voting site. At the end of the two rounds,...

Yeah, there’s no way WWE Intercontinental Champion Braun Strowman, who stands 6’8” tall and weighs 386 pounds, was going to fit in the “Ryan’s Mystery Playdate” Mystery Guest Box. That’s not happening.

The “Friday Night SmackDown” star will be unusually busy on Monday, but not because he’s booked on “Raw.” Strowman is Ryan’s mystery playdate on Nickelodeon preschool show, “Ryan’s Mystery Playdate.” TheWrap’s got your exclusive first look at all the size disparity.

In our sneak peek clip, Strowman had to take the door — and he took the door Down.

Also Read: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's Daughter Simone Has Begun Training at WWE Performance Center

“Sorry about your door,” he growls.

Ryan wants the former Strongman competitor to arm wrestle his dad. Wisely, dad wants no part of it.

Watch the video above. This would have made for a much different appearance if Strowman was still...

Fanny Lye Deliver’d, starring Maxine Peake, and Honey Boy, featuring Shia Labeouf, are among the titles competing in competition at the London Film Festival.

The 63rd BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the ten films to compete with 60% of the features directed or co-directed by women, while Isabel Sandoval, who directed Lingua Franca, is the first transgender director to compete in Official Competition.

The films are Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d, Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy, Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona, Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca, Oliver Hermanus’ Moffie, Alejandro Landes’ Monos, Małgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb, Haifaa Al Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s Rose Plays Julie and Rose Glass’ Saint Maud (full details below).

The Best Film winner will be chosen by the Official Competition Jury, the members of which will be announced in the coming weeks. Recent...

Netflix adds new movies almost every day, which only makes it harder to find ones worth watching. That’s where IndieWire comes in. From low-budget American gems to foreign film masterpieces, these are the overlooked independent movies you’ve got to make time for on Netflix. All titles are now available to stream.

Read More: 7 Netflix Original Movies That Are Worth Seeking Out

“6 Years” (2015)

“6 Years” provides a moving snapshot of a troubled relationship. The movie follows a young couple facing the titular anniversary as their future is challenged by various spats and infidelities. With an improvisatory style and two heartbreaking performances from Taissa Farmiga and Ben Rosenfield, “6 Years” imbues its traditional narrative with a fiery edge. Read IndieWire’s review.

“A Woman, A Part“ (2016)

In her feature directorial debut, Elisabeth Subrin confronts industry-wide sexism head on, making it clear that her protagonist’s experiences are not unique and dismantling any...

Exclusive: Second edition of event hosted with Greece’s Faliro House will support filmmakers from the region.

The participants for the second edition of the Faliro House Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop have been revealed.

The workshop, a collaboration between the Sundance Institute and Christos V Konstantakopoulos’ Greek production company Faliro House, supports emerging filmmakers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus (last year’s event is pictured above).

The five-day workshop, held in Costa Navarino, Greece from July 3-9, gives eight filmmakers the chance to work on their feature film scripts with advisors.

The advisors include filmmaker Gyula Gazdag, artistic director for the Sundance Institute in the Us, Lisa Cholodenko (Olive Kitteridge, The Kids Are Alright), Julie Delpy (Before Midnight, 2 Days In Paris), Jeff Nichols (Loving, Take Shelter), recent Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Square, Force Majeure), Ira Sachs (Little Men, Love Is Strange), Zach Sklar (JFK), Eva Stefani (Bathers, Acropolis) and Athina Rachel Tsangari...

A superbly directed, quietly devastating film about an EasyJet Gustav von Aschenbach who embarrasses himself by falling in love with a younger beauty

Argyris Papadimitropoulos is a Greek film-maker whose work I didn’t know before seeing this unbearably sad story of sexual obsession. His style stands a little outside the black-comic absurdism of contemporaries such as Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari, but he deserves to be as well known as them.

Suntan is tremendously acted, fiercely and instantly absorbing, a tragicomic tale of male midlife breakdown, featuring someone who could possibly be described as an EasyJet Gustav von Aschenbach. Makis Papadimitriou (who was in Tsangari’s film Chevalier) is excellent as Kostis, a plump, bald, middle-aged doctor who, after an unspecified history of personal disappointment, takes up a job as local practitioner on a Greek island whose economy depends on the summer months, when it becomes party central for beautiful twentysomethings.

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

Allied (Robert Zemeckis)

That thing we can’t take for granted: a film whose many parts – period piece, war picture, blood-spattered actioner, deception-fueled espionage thriller, sexy romance, and, at certain turns, comedy – can gracefully move in conjunction and separate from each other, just as its labyrinthine-but-not-quite plot jumps from one setpiece to the next with little trouble in maintaining a consistency of overall pleasure. Another late-career triumph for Robert Zemeckis, and one of the year’s few truly great American movies.

“Toni Erdmann” has won the Best International Feature at the 2017 Film Independent Spirit Awards. In accepting the award, writer-director Maren Ade called attention to how few films are directed by women.

“I’m really happy and proud to stand here as a female director because it’s still not normal enough,” said Ade, who afterwards gave Film Independent credit for the diversity of their nominees across categories.

Read More: Foreign-Language Oscar Nominees Make Joint Political Statement

Ade did not make any mention of President Trump’s travel ban which has become a big issue for her and the other Oscar nominated directors for Best Foreign Language Film. In light of fellow Oscar nominee Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (who was not nominated for a Spirit Award) having canceled his plans to attend tomorrow’s Oscars ceremony, the five Oscar nominated directors for Best Language Film yesterday issued a joint statement saying no matter who wins,...

The Rehearsal.

Ghita Loebenstein is gearing up for another year of She Speaks First, the female-focused film series she founded in 2015..

The series, in which screenings of films made by women are followed by conversations about the space women occupy in cinema, most recently presented Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier at Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image last October..

This Wednesday, She Speaks First returns to Acmi with a screening of New Zealand feature The Rehearsal, directed by Alison Maclean..

Afterwards, Maclean will appear via video-link from La to talk about her film. Kim Krejus, artistic director of 16th Street Actors Studio, will also join the conversation..

The Rehearsal is adapted from the novel by Booker Prize—winning Kiwi author Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries). Variety described the film, which premiered last year at Tiff, as "like Fame redone as a good movie"..

James Rolleston (Boy, The Dark Horse) plays Stanley,...

Each year, the Sundance Film Festival rolls out an enviable lineup of jury members — billed as “experts in film, art, culture and science” — to dole out awards to the feature-length works shown at the festival. In total, 28 prizes (and sometimes more!) will be announced at a ceremony on January 28 (as ever, Short Film Awards will be announced at a separate ceremony on January 24). The festival has now announced this year’s various jury members, including actors, filmmakers, producers, writers and other luminaries (and, yes, plenty of Sundance alums pop up amongst their ranks).

Additionally, the festival has also announced that actress, comedian, correspondent and podcast host Jessica Williams will host the annual awards. Jones seems poised to have a very busy Sundance indeed, as she also toplines James Strouse’s premiere “The Incredible Jessica James,” which will close out the festival the night before.

The awards, which recognize standout artistic and story elements,...

Paul Federbush, International Director, Feature Film Program at Sundance Institute detailed the Institute’s comprehensive support for emerging filmmakers .

Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and development of independent artists and audiences. Through its programs, the Institute seeks to discover, support, and inspire independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work.

The entry point to support from the Feature Film Program is its Screenwriting Labs — the Institute’s first artist program — held twice a year at the Sundance Resort in Utah each January and June.The Screenwriters Lab is a five-day writer’s workshop that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensively on their feature film scripts with the support of established writers in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. Through one-on-one story sessions with Creative Advisors,...

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Glenn on his year with #52FilmsByWomen

The hashtag ‘52FilmsByWomen’ was started by Women in Film as a means of getting people to consciously watch at least one film a week directed by a woman. It seems like a simple mission considering the number of films many of us watch for both work and pleasure, but I have no doubt that of the 10,000+ people who pledged to do it, many didn’t reach the goal. That’s all right, though, because I saw enough for two.

No, really. In 2016, I watched 105 titles including feature films, shorts, and documentaries. They cover classics, new releases, hidden gems, animations, comedy, horror, and from all over the world. Here are...

Ten Observations From My Year Of #52Filmsbywomen

Subverting Toxic Masculinity

We don’t just want more women making films for their fine-tuned insights into the lives...

Contrary to the alarmist accounts that cinema as an art form is agonizing and nearing the end of its relevance, 2016 sent a clear message stating that sequels, rehashed ideas, and spinoffs, deserved to be axed and replaced with new concepts — even if that means less billion-dollar tent poles per year. Of course, independent and international films are the heroes that continue to reignite audiences passion for the medium, though most of them struggle to achieve the financial success they deserve.

Cinema is far from dead, and that’s obvious if one is looking away from the star-studded formulaic products and into the land of unknown, subtitled, or thematically challenging content. Latin American films had an enviable year that include an Oscar nomination, presence at all world-class festivals, and success finding distribution in the Us and numerous markets. Animated crafted outside of studio constraints took narrative risks unseen previously and demonstrated...

No year is a “bad year” for movies, but some years aren’t exactly too kind to certain subjects, genres, concepts and people. 2016, for all of its many negatives, has been a good year for film – and for its women, both behind the camera and squarely in front of it.

While female filmmakers are still struggling to be recognized in the same way as their male counterparts, the women who have broken through – from reliable auteurs like Andrea Arnold, Rebecca Miller, Kelly Reichardt and Anne Fontaine to rising stars like Maren Ade, Sophia Takal and Clea Duvall – did so in a very big way this year, thanks to films that spoke to their own talents and visions. Actresses also shown bright in 2016, from awards favorites like Natalie Portman, Annette Bening and Octavia Spencer to fresh faces like Kate Lyn Sheil, Ruth Negga and Sasha Lane.

There’s still a ways to go,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Exactly one year after completing his accomplished Before trilogy at Sundance, writer-director Richard Linklater returned with Boyhood, a film 12 years in the making and worth every minute of the wait. Shot one week at a time over the course of a decade or so, Linklater explores the formative years of a young man named Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane. Born into separated parents, played by Patricia Arquette...

Here’s your daily dose of an indie film, web series, TV pilot, what-have-you in progress, as presented by the creators themselves. At the end of the week, you’ll have the chance to vote for your favorite.

In the meantime: Is this a project you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments.

Tracks

Logline: A mother waits for the train with her young son. At one point she loses sight of him. The boy is in the tracks. The train is coming. The mother screams.

Elevator Pitch:

The film is based on a true story about a woman whose child got into the train tracks, the train was coming and she started to scream. Then another woman jumped in saved the child but lost her life. It’s set in two different timelines: on one hand we see the young woman from the beginning of her day...

★★★★☆ The famous Bechdel Test - taken from a 1985 comic strip by Alison Bechdel - has over the past few years become an ever more popular barometer to gauge the validity of a film's treatment of women. The new film from Athina Rachel Tsangari, Chevalier spectacularly fails the test by not actually featuring a single female character on screen and yet those interested in equality of gender representation in current cinema would be advised not to overlook it. Eschewing the more outlandish elements of 2010's Attenberg, this is a brilliantly contained and sublimely ridiculous send-up of competitive male egos from a female perspective.

Certain Women won the prize for best film at London Film Festival. Kelly Reichardt's female-centric drama Certain Women, starring Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone, Michelle Williams and Laura Dern, has won the Best Film award in London Film Festival's Official Competition.

The jury - headed by Chevalier director Athina Rachel Tsangari - said “In a vibrant year for cinema it was the masterful mise en scène and quiet modesty of this film that determined our choice for Best film. A humane and poignant story that calibrates with startling vulnerability and delicate understatement the isolation, frustrations and loneliness of lives unlived in a quiet corner of rural America”.

The Sutherland Award for best first feature went to Julia Ducournau for Raw, a coming-of-age body horror tale about a young woman’s insatiable appetite for flesh.

Jury president Sarah Gavron (Suffragette) said “It is a film that shocked and surprised us in equal measure.

The great and the good of the British film industry were out in force on Saturday night for the BFI London Film Festival's glittering awards ceremony at the U.K. capital's grand Banqueting House. The penultimate night of the 12-day event saw Kelly Reichardt's Sundance hit Certain Women, starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern and Michelle Williams, take home the best film award, announced by jury president Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose drama Chevalier had won the same prize at last year's fest. Other prizes went to Julia Ducournau for her French cannibalism horror Raw, which claimed the Sutherland Award for

read more...

Lff Awards winners include Kelly Reichardt; audience attendance increases 18% from 2015 to record-breaking 184,700.

The BFI London Film Festival announced this year’s festival awards’ winners at its annual awards dinner at Banqueting House over the weekend, and revealed record-breaking attendances as the festival drew to a close on Sunday (Oct 16).

Audience attendance reached a record-breaking 184,700, an 18% increase from 157,000 last year. New temporary venue Embankment Garden Cinema, which hosted the festival’s strand galas and official competition films, played a significant role in the rise.

Best film in official competition went to Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt’s portrait of the lives of three very different women in Montana. The award was announced by jury president Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose film Chevalier won the best film prize last year.

The jury commented: “In a vibrant year for cinema it was the masterful mise en scène and quiet modesty of this film that determined our choice for best film. A humane...

Lff Awards winners include Kelly Reichardt; audience attendance increases 18% from 2015 to record-breaking 184,700.

The BFI London Film Festival announced this year’s festival awards’ winners at its annual awards dinner at Banqueting House over the weekend, and revealed record-breaking attendances as the festival drew to a close on Sunday (Oct 16).

Audience attendance reached a record-breaking 184,700, an 18% increase from 157,000 last year. New temporary venue Embankment Garden Cinema, which hosted the festival’s strand galas and official competition films, played a significant role in the rise.

Best film in official competition went to Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt’s portrait of the lives of three very different women in Montana. The award was announced by jury president Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose film Chevalier won the best film prize last year.

The jury commented: “In a vibrant year for cinema it was the masterful mise en scène and quiet modesty of this film that determined our choice for best film. A humane...

Winners include Kelly Reichardt, Julia Ducournau and Mehrdad Oskouei.

The BFI London Film Festival announced this year’s festival awards’ winners at its annual awards dinner at Banqueting House in Whitehall this evening.

Best film in official competition went to Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt’s portrait of the lives of three very different women in Montana. The award was announced by jury president Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose film Chevalier won the best film prize last year.

The jury commented: “In a vibrant year for cinema it was the masterful mise en scène and quiet modesty of this film that determined our choice for best film. A humane and poignant story that calibrates with startling vulnerability and delicate understatement the isolation, frustrations and loneliness of lives unlived in a quiet corner of rural America.”

Tsangari’s fellow jurors were screenwriter Abi Morgan, Singaporean writer/director/producer Anthony Chen, actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Romanian film-maker Radu Jude.

The Sutherland...

“It was important for me to spend time in Coney Island. It’s a beautiful place, very Fellini,” said Alice Rohrwacher in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater at Lincoln Center. The Italian filmmaker spent the last month in New York because she was selected as the 2016 Filmmaker in Residence, a program co-founded by Film Society of Lincoln Center and Jaeger-LeCoultre to support filmmakers in early development. Previous filmmakers selected for the program include American Honey’s Andrea Arnold and Chevalier’s Athina Rachel Tsangari. Besides participating in a New York Film Festival talk about her career and working on the screenplay […]...

Eighty-five countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 89th Academy Awards. Yemen is a first-time entrant.

The 2016 submissions are:

Albania, “Chromium,” Bujar Alimani, director;

Algeria, “The Well,” Lotfi Bouchouchi, director;

Argentina, “The Distinguished Citizen,” Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat, directors;

Australia, “Tanna,” Bentley Dean, Martin Butler, directors;

Austria, “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe,” Maria Schrader, director;

Bangladesh, “link=tt5510934 auto]The Unnamed[/link],” Tauquir Ahmed, director;

Belgium, “The Ardennes,” Robin Pront, director;

Bolivia, “Sealed Cargo,” Julia Vargas Weise, director;

Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Death in Sarajevo,” Danis Tanovic, director;

Brazil, “Little Secret,” David Schurmann, director;

Bulgaria, “Losers,” Ivaylo Hristov, director;

Cambodia, “Before the Fall,” Ian White, director;

Canada, “It’s Only the End of the World,” Xavier Dolan, director;

Chile, “Neruda,” Pablo Larraín, director;

China, “Xuan Zang,” Huo Jianqi, director;

Colombia, “Alias Maria,” José Luis Rugeles, director;

Costa Rica, “About Us,” Hernán Jiménez, director;

Croatia, “On the Other Side,...

The official submissions for the foreign language Oscar are in from around the world, and the Academy has deemed a record 85 eligible to compete. Last year, 81 submissions were released theatrically in their home countries between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015. (This year’s deadline for submissions was October 3, 2016.)

Several Academy foreign committees comprised of members from all the branches will whittle down the films to a shortlist of nine and finally, five Oscar nominees. (Last year’s winner was Cannes prize-winner “Son of Saul,” directed by Hungarian Lazlo Nemes.) Many countries pick films that do well on the festival circuit as their strongest Oscar contender; others do not.

Politics often intervene: Brazil’s submission was expected to be Cannes competition film “Aquarius,” starring Sonia Braga, but it was embroiled in controversy over filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s support of outgoing impeached president Dilma Rousseff. Bruno Barreto’s Brazil selection committee went...

The official submissions for the foreign language Oscar are in from around the world, and the Academy has deemed a record 85 eligible to compete. Last year, 81 submissions were released theatrically in their home countries between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015. (This year’s deadline for submissions was October 3, 2016.)

Several Academy foreign committees comprised of members from all the branches will whittle down the films to a shortlist of nine and finally, five Oscar nominees. (Last year’s winner was Cannes prize-winner “Son of Saul,” directed by Hungarian Lazlo Nemes.) Many countries pick films that do well on the festival circuit as their strongest Oscar contender; others do not.

Politics often intervene: Brazil’s submission was expected to be Cannes competition film “Aquarius,” starring Sonia Braga, but it was embroiled in controversy over filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s support of outgoing impeached president Dilma Rousseff. Bruno Barreto’s Brazil selection committee went...

Eighty-five countries have submitted a film for consideration in the 60th anniversary year of the foreign language film category.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science said on Tuesday that this season also marks the first time Yemen has submitted a film, Khadija Al-Salami’s I Am Nojoom, Age 10 And Divorced.

The 89th Oscars will take place on February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. László Nemes’ Hungarian entry Son Of Saul won the award last February.

Foreign-language Academy Award Submissions

(Country, Title, director)

Albania, Chromium, dir Bujar Alimani;

Algeria, The Well, Lotfi Bouchouchi;

Argentina, The Distinguished Citizen, Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat;

Australia, Tanna, Bentley Dean, Martin Butler;

Austria, Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe, Maria Schrader;

Bangladesh, The Unnamed, Tauquir Ahmed;

Belgium, The Ardennes, Robin Pront;

Bolivia, Sealed Cargo, Julia Vargas Weise;

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Death In Sarajevo, Danis Tanovic;

Brazil, Little Secret, David Schurmann.

Bulgaria, Losers, [link...

Michael Sheen will host this year’s London Film Festival awards ceremony.

The juries for the 60th BFI London Film Festival (Oct 5-16) have been revealed.

Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of Chevalier - winner of best film at last year’s Lff and Greece’s Oscar entry this year – will preside over this year’s Official Competition.

That jury will also feature Belle star Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Suffragette writer Abi Morgan, Aferim! director Radu Jude, and Ilo Ilo director Anthony Chen.

They will oversee a line-up including Paul Verhoeven’s Elle, submitted by France to the 2017 Oscar race, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, François Ozon’s Frantz¸ Mohamed Diab’s Clash, and Benedict Andrews’ Una.

Frost/Nixon and The Queen star Michael Sheen will host this year’s awards ceremony at Banqueting House on Oct 15, where 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen will receive a BFI Fellowship award.

Elsewhere, Suffragette director Sarah Gavron will preside over the First Feature Competition...

Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier is the Greek submission to the foreign film category at the 2017 Academy Awards.

Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier has been selected by the Culture Ministry to represent Greece in the Oscar category for Best Foreign Language Film, 2017.

The film, a social satire taking place entirely on a boat where a group of men compete for macho supremacy, joins the Oscar race after a number of awards in 2015 including best film at the BFI London Film Festival, a jury special mention and the best male award for its group of five leading actors at Sarajevo Film Festival, as well as the special jury prize at the Cartagena International Film Festival.

Award-winning screenwriter and Yorgos Lanthimos’ regular collaborator Efthimis Filippou penned the script in collaboration with Tsangari.

The picture was produced by Faliro House Productions and Tsangari’s own outlet Haos Film with the backing of the Greek Film Centre.

This is the...

This is the Pure Movies review of Chevalier, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari and starring Vangelis Mourikis, Nikos Orphanos and Yorgos Pirpassopoulos. Written by Dr. Garth Twa. Greece is renowned for many things: it is the land of myth, of Dionysian revels, of octopuses hung like pantyhose on clotheslines to dry. It is the land of our first storytelling, birthplace of epics, of comedies, of tragedies; but not, until now, cinematic stories. As a film industry, there hasn’t been much to talk about except, of course, the exceptions, like Theodoros Angelopolous (Ulysses’ Gaze, 1995, Eternity and a Day, 1998—both won big at Cannes) and Costa-Gavras, who, really, made American movies, like Missing (1982) with Jack Lemmon, or Mad City (1997) with John Travolta, or French movies like Z (1969). ‘Greek’ films like Never On a Sunday (Jules Dassin, 1960) and Zorba the Greek (Michael Cacoyannis, 1964) were Greek fetishisation made palatable to tourists by having non-Greek lead actors being swarthy.

What happens when a chance meeting leads you to look back at your own identity, and the cultural choices you’ve made along the way? That question is at the heart of “Front Cover,” a new film that follows openly gay New York City fashion stylist Ryan (Jake Choi) who has rejected his traditional Asian upbringing. Ryan has been assigned to style Ning (James Chen), a famous Chinese actor for an upcoming photo shoot. Though the two initially get off on the wrong foot, an unlikely friendship forms between them, which leads Ryan to reexamine his childhood, his culture, and his identity as he sets foot on an unknown path. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.

Read More: Exclusive: Seattle Film Fest Programs 6 American Indies in Catalyst Lineup

The film is directed by Ray Yeung, who previously directed “Cut Sleeve Boys,” about two middle-aged British Chinese gay men...

Six men, a captain and two chefs on a boat. A competition of points both positive and negative on each and every aspect of their being and conduct. The winner crowned 'The Best in General'. With Chevalier, Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari exposes the deeply rooted competitiveness of male kind and the unspoken anxieties buried just as deep. She spoke with CineVue's Matthew Anderson to discuss her latest project, winner of the Best Film prize at last year's BFI London Film Festival.

Writer/director Athina Rachel Tsangari follows her 2010 feature Attenberg with this wry yet colourless study of an all male crew on an Aegean boat-ride back to Athens. Having exhausted their board game options, the yacht bound bunch become stricken with boredom so devise a game called “The Best at Everything”. The contest involves the crew […]

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It’s Eric, with thoughts on the new art house release, Chevalier.

First seen at the Locarno Film Festival last August, and now in limited release in the Us, Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari’s comedy focuses on six men onboard a ship in the Aegean Sea. They challenge each other to an extended contest to see which one of them is “The Best Ever”. They construct a series of games to compete against one another, but take the challenge even further to rate each other on every aspect of their behavior in an attempt to see who is the best man in the group.

It’s a fantastic premise, and Tsangari mines some rich comedy and pathos from it...

Seven Croatian features comprise the main competition, while Independence Day: Resurgence and Ghostbusters play in the international strand.Scroll down for the full list of titles

Croatia’s Pula Film Festival has revealed the line-up for its 63rd edition, which will take place July 9-16.

Croatian titles

Receiving 105 submissions from Croatian film-makers, festival president Hrvoje Pukšec and artistic directors Mike Downey and Tanja Miličić have selected 16 features and 18 shorts for the Croatian programme.

In competition will be Ivan–Goran Vitez’s second feature Shooting Stars [pictured], after his debut Forest Creatures premiered in Pula in 2010, and Berlinale premiere On The Other Side, the latest feature from Zrinko Ogresta, who has received multiple accolades at Pula for previous features including 1995’s Washed Out and 1999’s Red Dust.

The festival will also host the out-of-competition world premiere of Rade and Danilo Šerbedžija’s Second World War drama The Liberation Of Skopje.

Minority Croatia co-pros selected to play include Mirjana Karanović...

Athina Tsangari is a director and producer whose films examine the negotiation of power. While they span genres and approaches, her pictures — including her latest, Chevalier — are consistently organized around this theme. Chevalier takes place on a boat in the Aegean Sea. The men on board decide to play a game in which they judge each other on… everything. I spoke with Tsangari about her past and future projects and about returning to Greece, which has just wrapped up another tense debt relief negotiation with the Imf and EU. Chevalier opens at the IFC on Friday. Chevalier opens today […]...

Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari is seen as an important part of the current Greek "Weird Wave" of cinema. She produced several of Yorgos Lanthimos' films like Dogtooth, and he helped produce (and acted in) her previous film Attenberg. But there's something worth noting about that film: while Attenberg was unusual, it wasn't exactly "weird". It worked fine as a straight-faced drama, and though it contained some wry humor, it wasn't even all that absurd. Cue Tsangari's newest film Chevalier, of which the same thing can be said. Its main strength isn't so much that it is weird or absurd, but that it is all too believable: a group of men, on a holiday together, have themselves a dick-measuring contest to end all dick-measuring contests....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

At one point in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier,” a group of guys on a yachting expedition take turns listening to one of their friends whisper erotic stories so they’ll get aroused and he can take pictures of their erections. They then compare those photos, judging each other’s penises on length, engorgement, and general spryness. In other […]

The post Review: Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Bizarre, Compelling ‘Chevalier’ appeared first on The Playlist.

Athina Rachel Tsangari is probably not a ubiquitous name just yet, though odds are she is on her way to being a staple of Greek cinema. As a producer, Tsangari has been involved in some of the most exciting movies from the country in recent years, including working on “Dogtooth” with Yorgos Lanthimos and “Before Midnight” with […]

The post Watch: New U.S. Trailer For Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Bizarre Satire ‘Chevalier’ appeared first on The Playlist.

In addition to being the world's premier film festival, Cannes also features a number of important announcements for cinephiles everywhere. Variety reports that the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Jaeger-LeCoultre has named Italian director Alice Rohrwacher as the 2016 filmmaker in residence. Fslc Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez calls Rohrwacher "a distinctive filmmaker with a warm, infectious spirit" and "one of international cinema's brightest lights." She will be the fourth filmmaker in residence, following Athina Rachel Tsangari ("Chevalier," which won Best Film in Competition at the 2015 London Film Festival), Lisandro Alonso ("Jauja," which won the Fipresci Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival), and Andrea Arnold, whose "American Honey" was developed during the residency and is now competing in competition at Cannes this year. Read More: Film Society of Lincoln Center Announces 16th Film Comment Selects...

The new Film Comment is out with articles on Terence Davies, Alan Clarke, Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Juliet Berto in Jacques Rivette's Duelle, reviews of Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier, Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then and more. Also in today's roundup: David Bordwell on Orson Welles, Andrew Sarris's 1994 interview with Jean-Luc Godard, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Nicholas Ray and Alain Resnais, Ben Rivers on his influences, appreciations of the work of Georges Méliès, Terrence Malick and Stephen Chow—and much more. » - David Hudson...

The new Film Comment is out with articles on Terence Davies, Alan Clarke, Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Juliet Berto in Jacques Rivette's Duelle, reviews of Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier, Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then and more. Also in today's roundup: David Bordwell on Orson Welles, Andrew Sarris's 1994 interview with Jean-Luc Godard, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Nicholas Ray and Alain Resnais, Ben Rivers on his influences, appreciations of the work of Georges Méliès, Terrence Malick and Stephen Chow—and much more. » - David Hudson...

A few weeks after Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Lobster finally lands in the United States, it’s only fitting we get the next feature from Dogtooth and Alps producer Athina Rachel Tsangari. Following up Attenberg, her latest film is Chevalier, which follows a group of men at sea who attempt to one-up each other in various, increasingly dangerous games.

We said in our review, “From one of the earliest images of them — in a line, flaunting their catch from the sea — the film finds the group conducting virtually every variation on the dick-measuring contest. Unfortunately, this is why Chevalier is the kind of one-note, overly conceptual art film that says all it has to say within its first five minutes, but attempts to bury it with broad jabs at easy targets.”

Starring Yorgos Kentros, Panos Koronis, Vangelis Mourikis, Makis Papadimitriou, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Sakis Rouvas, Yiannis Drakopoulos, Nikos Orfanos, and Kostas Philippoglou,...

Alexis Alexiou’s neo-noir drama triumphed at an event dominated by the refugee crisis, with honorary award recipient Vanesa Redgrave speaking out against border policies.Scroll down for full list of winners

Alexis Alexiou’s sophomore directorial outing Wednesday 04.45 [pictured] swept the Hellenic Film Academy (Helfiac) Awards (aka the ‘Iris Awards’) on Monday evening (March 28) winning nine awards out of the 13 categories in which it was nominated, including best film and director.

The film, which played in the Tribeca, Karlovy Vary and Jeonju festivals, was also awarded best editing, music, cinematography, production design, sound, special effects and actor for Stelios Mainas.

The Greek, German, Israeli co-production backed by Eurimages, is a neo-noir style drama where a club owner, faced with the 2010 recession and unable to repay a loan secured from a thug, tries to avoid bankruptcy.

Handled locally by distribution powerhouse Feelgood Entertainment and in Germany by the Neue Visionen Filmverleih, and sold internationally...