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The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled 42 short films to feature as part of its Short Cuts program in September, led by the Riz Ahmed-starrer Dammi and Redlights, toplined by Kaniehtiio Horn and Ellyn Jade.

Ahmed, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Sound of Metal and last year earned a Oscar for the live-action short The Long Goodbye, toplines Dammi, a short directed by French auteur Yann Mounir Demange and set to world premiere in Locarno before landing in Toronto. The film also stars Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba and is produced by Ami, the French fashion brand, which teased a trailer for the film in Cannes.

Demange has TV series credits that include Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Dead Set, and movie credits like ’71 and White Boy Rick. Renee Zhan, who earned the Jury Award for best animated...

Riz Ahmed, who was set to be honored by the Locarno Film Festival, will no longer be attending the Swiss fest in solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA strike.

However, the Swiss fest has announced that the world premiere of “Dammi,” the short in which he stars directed by French auteur Yann Mounir Demange – will still world premiere Aug. 2 on opening night to an audience of 8,000 as planned.

“Dammi” is an experimental work, focusing on the themes of immigration and identity. It also stars Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba.

Meanwhile, Stellan Skarsgård, who was meant to be the recipient of Locarno’s Leopard Club Award, “will forgo the award in solidarity with the strike,” the fest said in a statement. But, he will be in Locarno for the screening of his new film “What Remains,” directed by Ran Huang, which is screening out-of-competition. Skarsgård’s award ceremony on the Piazza Grande,...

Riz Ahmed will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival where the latest short in which the British actor appears – titled “Dammi” and directed by French auteur Yann Mounir Demange – will world premiere.

Ahmed, who earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in 2021 for his performance as a drummer who suddenly goes deaf in Amazon’s “Sound of Metal,” will be feted by the Swiss fest dedicated to indie filmmaking cinema with with its 2021 Excellence Award Davide Campari, which pays tribute to film personalities who have left their personal stamp on contemporary cinema.

“Dammi,” which was teased at Cannes, is an experimental work, broadly on the theme of immigration and identity, produced by French fashion brand Ami, founded by Alexandre Mattiussi, and also starring Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba. The buzzed-about short will screen at Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande, on opening night, Aug. 2, during the...

UK star Riz Ahmed will be feted with a career achievement award at the upcoming 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, running August 2 and 12.

The Sound Of Metal actor will be presented with the Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening night ceremony on the festival’s landmark Piazza Grande open-air cinema.

The ceremony will premiere Yann Mounir Demange’s semi-autobiographical short film Dammi, in which Ahmed participated alongside Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba.

The tribute will also screen Bassam Tariq’s 2020 rapper drama Mughal Mowgli, which Ahmed starred in and also produced and co-wrote, as part of it program.

Locarno announced the tribute during its announcement on Wednesday of its full 2023 line-up.

French directorial duo Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel’s The Falling Star will open the festival as part of the Piazza Grande program, which also features Justine Triet’s 2023 Cannes d’Or Winner Anatomy of a Fall,...

Notre Dame Trailer — Netflix‘s Notre Dame (2022) TV mini-series trailer has been released. The Notre Dame trailer stars Roschdy Zem, Caroline Proust, Megan Northam, Simon Abkarian, Alice Isaaz, Marie Zabukovec, and Sandor Funtek. Crew Hervé Hadmar directed and wrote the screenplay for Notre Dame. Éric Demarsan created the music for the film. “It’s produced [...]

Continue reading: Notre-dame (2022) TV Mini-series Trailer: Firefighters Battle the Notre Dame Fire & Internal Demons [Netflix]...

"Save the cathedral… without losing a single life." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a mini-series titled Notre Dame, the second major production based around the Notre Dame fire in 2019. The moment this fire at the iconic cathedral made news around the world, I knew it would be turned into movies. Jean-Jacques Annaud made his own Notre-Dame On Fire film also releasing this year, and Netflix has made their mini-series based around the exact same concept - following the firefighters who went to work putting out the fire that night. Hervé Hadmar's Notre Dame series follows the story of the night of April 15th, 2019 in Notre-Dame Cathedral alongside the many firefighters and the impact the fire had on different characters across France. Starring Roschdy Zem, Caroline Proust, Megan Northam, Simon Abkarian, Alice Isaaz, Marie Zabukovec, Sandor Funtek. This looks like it has some gorgeous visuals, but it also...

Madonna threw a beautiful birthday in Italy for her son Rocco Ritchie, who she had with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie. She took to Instagram to commemorate the event, and it turns out she was warming up for her own 64th birthday celebration last night Tuesday.

Ritchie’s affair took place at a large Italian villa, and he was also accompanied by his younger sisters Estere and Stelle. His mother’s Instagram coverage of the event showed them getting serenaded by an accordion and guitar player, and Ritchie also cut into a cake that appeared to be styled to look like some high-end bag.

Madonna captioned her birthday post, “From one Leo to another!!” Reminding us that her own birthday was about to come as well. She showed off a beautiful white and blue birthday dress in an Instagram

Story post from last night, with smaller matching versions for Estere and Stelle too.

Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you haven’t watched Season 2 of “Russian Doll.”

As an adoptee, Charlie Barnett has been able to use “Russian Doll” to process his own family history.

It’s been three years since Season 1 of the Netflix dramedy first brought Barnett’s character, Alan, and series creator Natasha Lyonne‘s Nadia together in a falling elevator, which kills them both instantly — though they wake up again “Groundhog Day”-style and continue dying cyclically until they learn how to help each other out of the loop. While Season 1 fixated on the concept of the present, Season 2 takes Nadia and Alan to the past, where they find themselves inhabiting their ancestors’ bodies and witnessing first-hand the kinds of family trauma they could have only guessed about before.

“I never got the chance to meet my birth mother,” Barnett says. “I have met my birth grandmother. I’ve never met my birth father.

This year’s ceremony was uncharacteristically devoid of controversy after politically-charged editions in 2020 and 2021.

Xavier Giannoli’s costume drama Lost Illusions was the big winner at the 47th Cesar awards of France’s Academy of Cinema and Arts and Sciences on Friday evening (25), winning best film, adapted screenplay, costume and supporting actor among others.

The adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s19th-century novel premiered in competition at Venice last year. It was the frontrunner at the nomination stage, making it into 15 of the 24 César categories.

The other big winner of the evening was Leos Carax’s English-language musical Annette. Carax won best director,...

Ceremony for awards voted on by 4,363 members of the César academy will take place on February 25.

Xavier Giannoli’s literary adaptation Lost Illusions is the frontrunner in the nomination stage of the 47th edition of France’s César awards, followed by Leos Carax’s Annette and Valérie Lemercier’s Aline.

France’s Academy of Cinema and Arts and Sciences unveiled the nomination list online on Wednesday morning (January 26), ahead of the ceremony scheduled to take place on February 25.

Giannoli’s adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s eponymous 19th-century novel, which premiered in competition at Venice last year, was nominated in...

Update: Xavier Giannoli’s Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) leads nominations for the 2022 César Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscar. The Venice premiere scored 15 mentions, followed by Leos Carax’s Annette, which opened the Cannes Film Festival last year and has 11 nominations. They are followed by Valérie Lemercier’s Aline, the musical dramedy inspired by the life of Céline Dion which also debuted in Cannes and has 10 nods. (Scroll down for the full list of nominations.)

Interestingly, the three films that France shortlisted for the International Feature Academy Award race came in on the lower end. Cédric Jiminez’s Bac Nord (The Stronghold) took seven nominations, while Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion winner Happening settles for four, tying Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane.

The latter was France’s eventual entry to the Oscars, but did not make the shortlist. It was also shut out of the Best Film category at the Césars today.

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “I and the Stupid Boy,” the new title in the Prada-commissioned Miu Miu Women’s Tales short film series directed by women, was unveiled Sept. 4 at the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section.

The short by Ben Hania, who directed the Oscar-nominated “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” is a tale of male-female power, sexuality and shame — with a biting, feminist twist.

In “I and the Stupid Boy,” the protagonist, Nora, is a striking young woman, newly in love. All dressed up, she takes a short cut through an abandoned building, on the way to her date, only to run into Kevin, her ex, who pulls up in a scooter and starts to harass her.

Nora is played by Oulaya Amamra, who won the 2017 César Award for best emerging actress for her role in the film “Divines” by Houda Benyamina, set in the Paris banlieu.

Following up his love-it-or-hate-it Climax, director Gaspar Noé secretly shot a new film this past spring and it’s among the additions to the Cannes Film Festival lineup, which also includes new work by Ari Folman, a Bill Murray concert film, Noémie Merlant’s directorial debut, and more.

As for the Enter the Void director’s latest, he shot Vortex over twenty days between mid-March and April 2021, with a cast including Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun, and Alex Lutz, as well as a budget of 3.3 million euros, more than his last two features. Check out a roughly-translated synopsis below via his Le Temps de Trout Tout:

Gaspar Noé, son of the Argentinian painter Luis Felipe Noé, finished his film at the last minute because he shot it quickly and late. A quasi-documentary film about the last days of a loving old couple suffering from senility, played by Françoise Lebrun and Dario Argento.

The director is shooting a Nord-Ouest Films production sold by WTFilms on the early days of French hip hop band Ntm, starring Théo Christine and Sandor Funtek in the roles of JoeyStarr and Kool Shen. On 5 August, filming commenced on Suprêmes, Audrey Estrougo’s 6th full-length movie after Ain’t Scared (uncovered in the 2008 Berlinale Forum), Leila (2011), Une histoire banale (2014), Jailbirds (which earned itself a 2017 Magritte nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category) and A la folie (whose release date is yet to be confirmed). Standing tall in the cast are Théo Christine (who made his mark in the series Skam France and whom we’ll be seeing in French cinemas on 28 October by way of My Best Part), Sandor Funtek,...

Sarah Marx: 'I met Sandor Funtek at the very start of the writing process because to put words into Ulysses mouth, I needed to work with the actor. There was great work between us' Photo: Sarah Marx Sarah Marx fiction feature debut L'Enkas, which tells the story of Ulysse (Sandor Funtek), a young man freshly out of prison who is desperate to make some cash in order to look after his depressed mother (Sandrine Bonnaire). Co-written by Hamé Bourokba and Ekoué Labitey it explores crime, not as a fun adrenaline rush, but as an act of desperation, fuelled by melancholy and necessity. The film had its world premiere in the Horizons section of Venice Film Festival , and I caught up with Marx to chat about it.

I'm interested in the way you handle the plot that on paper looks very familiar plot about a person who comes out of...

It’s hard out there for a food-truck guy in Truk (L’enkas), the smudgy feature debut from French filmmaker Sarah Marx. Constructed around a hard-knock, lived-in performance from Franco-Hungarian thespian Sandor Funtek as a just-released-from-jail young man who dives straight back into illegal behavior involving ketamine — hence the emphasis on the "k" in the title, to the detriment of the poor, missing "c" — this is the kind of first work that’s more promising in parts than as a whole.

A small supporting turn from deglammed French star Sandrine Bonnaire, as the lead’s down-and-out ...

It’s hard out there for a food-truck guy in Truk (L’enkas), the smudgy feature debut from French filmmaker Sarah Marx. Constructed around a hard-knock, lived-in performance from Franco-Hungarian thespian Sandor Funtek as a just-released-from-jail young man who dives straight back into illegal behavior involving ketamine — hence the emphasis on the "k" in the title, to the detriment of the poor, missing "c" — this is the kind of first work that’s more promising in parts than as a whole.

A small supporting turn from deglammed French star Sandrine Bonnaire, as the lead’s down-and-out ...

‪Susanna Nicchiarelli's Nico, 1988‬ star ‪Trine Dyrholm‬: "It's so important to have such complex female characters on screen." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

"This is Berlin, my darling, it's burning," says a mother to her daughter. The child is to become The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol icon known as Nico. Susanna Nicchiarelli's Nico, 1988, a highlight of the Tribeca Film Festival and the Horizons Award Best Film winner at last year's Venice International Film Festival, stars an outstanding Trine Dyrholm as Christa Päffgen (Nico's birth name). John Gordon Sinclair is her hapless manager Richard, Thomas Trabacchi music collaborator Domenico, Sandor Funtek is Christa's lost son Ari, Anamaria Marinca is violinst Sylvia, and Karina Fernandez is Laura.

Nico (Trine Dyrholm) with her son Ari (Sandor Funtek): "It's a universal film. It's a film about a mother, a woman, an artist, a war generation, a human being."

Nicchiarelli's extraordinary film, produced by...

“Please don’t confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them,” sings German model-actress-musician Nico on 1967’s Jackson Browne-penned “These Days,” one of her signature post-Velvet Underground songs. It opens Susanna Nicchiarelli’s third feature, “Nico, 1988,” an exploration of the cult star’s final two years before her death at age 49, and the song’s mournful rumination on regret is tailor-made for the story.

Nico hates being called by that stage name, even though by 1986 when the film begins, it’s her last remaining meal ticket. Born Christa Päffgen in 1930s Germany, she has never been famous in the traditional sense. A teenage model who became one of Andy Warhol’s “superstars,” appearing in a handful of his experimental films, she sang three songs on an album, “The Velvet Underground and Nico,” that few people knew about at the time of its initial release, but grew in stature and influence years later.

The curse of many a female artist has been that despite their brilliance and the longevity of their careers, they are forever linked to their relationships with certain men. Whether they be mentors, lovers, or children, these men take over these women’s relation to the world denying them and their audiences the ability to see their true, whole selves. In Nico, 1988, writer/director Susana Nicchiarelli chronicles the legendary artist’s last two years and her relationship with two men: Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, with whom she collaborated in one of the most influential albums of the twentieth century, and her son Ari. That only one of these men is portrayed in the film says loads about the central conflict Nicchiarelli explores: when will the world stop defining women based on the actions of men?

We first encounter Nico (Trine Dyrholm) as she prepares to embark on a European tour.

"I don't need everybody to like me, I don't care." Magnolia Pictures has debuted the trailer for a film titled Nico, 1988, a music biopic profiling the life of singer-songwriter Christa Päffgen, better known by her stage name "Nico". She was one of Andy Warhol's muses and also the celebrated vocalist for The Velvet Underground, until she tragically died at age 49 in 1988. "Writer-director Susanna Nicchiarelli dives deep into the anguished and scattered psychology of Nico’s final years. She blends a tangible reverence for her subject with dark humor, crafting a riveting examination of a fragile artist constantly pushed to perform." Danish actress Trine Dyrholm stars as Nico, along with John Gordon Sinclair, Anamaria Marinca, Sandor Funtek, Thomas Trabacchi, Karina Fernandez, Calvin Demba, and Francesco Colella. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, and hit a bunch of other festivals before its release. Here's the official Us...

A little girl stands on the outskirts of Berlin and watches from a distance as orange fire melts the city into a shapeless candied glow. Twenty years later, she reappears as a blonde chanteuse in Andy Warhol’s New York City, her stage name attached to one of the most influential records in the history of popular music. Twenty years after that, she sits in a Manchester radio station, patchy and strung out and shutting down any questions about her stint with The Velvet Underground — she’ll be dead in two years, but it looks as if she’s already decomposing.

The first 90 seconds of Susanna Nicchiarelli’s gloomy and grounded biopic visit all three of these periods (though the rest of it is almost exclusively set in the last one), “Nico, 1988” introducing its subject as someone who can’t extricate her present from her past. Several decades into a tortured and compelling solo career,...

Sarah Marx’s debut feature explores the challenges of life after prison.

Source: Wiki Commons

Sandrine Bonnaire

Paris-based sales company Versatile has boarded French filmmaker Sarah Marx’s upcoming debut feature L’Enkas exploring the challenges of life after prison through the tale of an ex-convict who sets up a business selling ketamine out of a food truck at raves to make ends meet.

Marx, whose career to date spans music videos, documentaries and shorts, co-wrote the screenplay with French rappers Hamé and Ekoué, founders of the long-running, pro-social justice rap group La Rumeur.

Sandor Funtek stars as the young protagonist Ulysee who returns home after a stint in jail to the harsh reality of a severely depressed mother, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, and mounting bills.

“Ulysee is an ex-convict, fresh out of prison, who has to confront a different kind of incarceration: that of his mother’s illness,” says Marx.

“Right away he has...

Title: Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2) Sundance Selects Director: Abdellatif Kechiche Screenwriter: Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalya Lacroix, loosely adapted from the graphic novel “Blue Angel,” or “Le bleu est une couleur chaude” by Julie Maroh Cast: Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Salim Kechiouche, Jérémie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing, Mona Walravens, Fanny Maurin, Benjámin Siksou, Sandor Funtek Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 10/17/13 Opens: October 25, 2013 Let me take a stab at what you’re going to say as you leave this film. “In my next life, I want to be French.” As we can see by Abdellatif Kechiche’s latest film, the French enjoy the [ Read More ]

The post Blue is the Warmest Color Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Blue Is the Warmest Color movie: Julie Maroh discusses Abdellatif Kechiche’s failure to acknowledge her (photo: Léa Seydoux in Blue Is the Warmest Color) [See previous post: "Lesbian Sex Scenes 'Turned into Porn' Complains Blue Is the Warmest Color Author."] In the segment below (translated from the French original found here), Julie Maroh describes her less-than-satisfying professional relationship with Abdellatif Kechiche. I’m not a mind reader, but I do believe that her last couple of sentences carry a heavy dose of irony. (See also “Blue is the Warmest Color release date?“) This finale at Cannes is evidently incredible, breathtaking. … Tonight, I discovered that it was the first time in film history that a "comic strip" [graphic novel] inspired a Palme d’Or winner, and this thought leaves me petrified. … I’d like to thank everyone who was astonished, shocked, disgusted that Kechiche didn’t say a thing about me while accepting the Palme d’Or. I have no doubts that he had good reasons for not having done so,...

Blue Is the Warmest Color: Oscars? Césars? European Film Awards? (Picture: Léa Seydoux, Abdellatif Kechiche, and Adèle Exarchopoulos at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony) [See previous post: "Lesbian love story Blue Is the Warmest Color wins Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or."] Both Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, director-co-screenwriter Abdellatif Kechiche, and Blue Is the Warmest Color itself are all shoo-ins for the 2014 Césars and near-shoo-ins for the European Film Awards. Kechiche has already won two Best Director / Best Screenplay / Best Film Césars: for Games of Love and Chance (2003) and The Secret of the Grain (2007, produced by Claude Berri). Even so, he has never been shortlisted for the European Film Awards; yet, at the very least one nomination — Best European Film, Best Director, or Best Screenplay — is all but guaranteed later this year. Needless to say, at this stage it’s impossible to know if Blue Is the Warmest Color will be France’s submission for the 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. In case Kechiche’s...

Le bleu est une couleur chaude (Blue Is a Hot Color)

Director/Writer/: Abdellatif Kechiche

Producer(s): Kechiche’s Quat’sous Films & Wild Bunch

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Jeremie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing, Sandor Funtek

Almost Kubrick-like with how demanding he is of each scene, Abdellatif Kechiche has been developing his signature style (long takes that magnify everything that surrounds the human condition) focusing on the fringe characters of society since his debut 2000′s La Faute à Voltaire and expertly with 2007′s The Secret of the Grain. His fifth feature film is an adaptation from a graphic novel – his second adaptation.

Gist: This centers on Jocelyne (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who is 15 years old and is certain of two things: she is a girl, and girls go out with boys. On the day in which she spots Emma’s (Léa Seydoux) blue hair on the Grand Place,...