Ioncinema – MRQE

Lisandro Alonso’s ‘The Scent of the Pitanga’ – Everything We Know So Far …

mrqe — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:01:10 +0000

Seven films in and all features have premiered in Cannes, Buenos Aires born filmmaker Lisandro Alonso has alongside the likes of Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero been at the forefront of the New Argentine Cinema movement. Known for minimalist “slow cinema,” famous for austere, observational, and blurring the lines between docu observation and fiction the key themes in his work include solitude, wandering journeymen with deep ties to the landscape. He first loaded up the Croisette with four features in his first decade of filmmaking – La Libertad (2001), Los Muertos (2004), Fantasma (2006) and Liverpool (2008). He presented Jauja in the Un Certain Regard section in 2014, and we had to wait until 2023 for his ambitious Eureka to premiere as a Cannes Premiere selection.… Read the rest

2027 Oscars: Austria Backs Hüller as ‘Rose’ in the Best Intl. Feature Film Category

mrqe — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:15:53 +0000

Austria were in a bit of a pickle situation with three potential frontrunners for the 2027 Oscar race. They had Cannes competition item Gentle Monster (backed by Netflix), Un Certain Regard winner Everytime (1-2 Special) and then we have Berlinale winner for Best Actress in Rose all vying as hopefuls for Best Intl. Feature Film Category. The choice was cemented today — finally it is Markus Schleinzer‘s third feature film that was selected. With future stops at Telluride and New York Film Fest (oddly TIFF wasn’t interested), the stellar b&w drama will now see Mubi pushing harder for two Sandra Hüller perfs – they also have Fatherland in the mix.… Read the rest

2026 NYFF: Carlos Reygadas’ ‘Heil Jupiter!’ to World Premiere in Currents

mrqe — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:45:56 +0000

At long last we found a home (the New York Film Fest’s Currents section) for Carlos Reygadas‘ latest work (formerly titled Wake of Umbra) has arrived. Clocking in at precisely two and a half hours, Heil Jupiter! was perhaps so esoteric and explicit that it was possibly shunned by Cannes, Venice and Toronto selection committees. The NYFF posits this as the tale of two young couples open up a realm of shifting realities. Unbeknownst to them, a mysterious entity watches from high above with Godlike judgment. Between these spaces exists a world balanced on the edge of the modern and the primitive, the high-tech and the rural, the corporeal and the mythic.… Read the rest

Train to Busan | Review

mrqe — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:01:06 +0000

Here Comes the Train Again: Sang-ho’s Live Action Debut Heavy on Tropes

Zombie contagion sweeps over South Korea while a random band of survivors struggle to remain on a train racing from Seoul to Busan as the undead take over, tram car by tram car. With public transportation providing a cross section of social classes, these characters (or study group, rather) is merely another microcosm of capitalistic greed and a queasy understanding of economic privilege. Sound familiar? Director Yeon Sang-ho crosses over from animation (The King of Pigs; The Fake) to make a sort-of sequel with live-action debut Train to Busan, which ends up feeling awfully similar to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer mixed with the zombie dressing of a World War Z or 28 Days Later.… Read the rest

2026 TIFF: World Preems for Bahman Ghobadi & Cody Fern, ‘Bucking Fastard’ Hits All 4 Fall Fests

mrqe — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 21:55:29 +0000

The final titles have trickled in for the 2026 Toronto Intl. Film Festival and we can now confirm what are Telluride updates, and the only film to hit the major four fests of the fall – this after being selected for Cannes (premiere section). Guy Nattiv’s The Liberation (formerly titled Harmonia) is indeed landing in 2026 via the Bleecker Street folks – and it has us extremely curious. Inspired by his family’s true story, this is loaded with Carrie Coon, Lily James, Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young. Seeing this is a Canadian premiere means it’s heading Telluride, and other Gala and Special Presentations programme selections in The Idiot(s) and a big awards-tipped Wild Horse Nine are so too.… Read the rest

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma | Review

mrqe — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 03:00:06 +0000

The Story of O: Schoenbrun Approaches the Horrific Desire Inside Us All

The inextricable union of victim, victimizer, and witness becomes a metatextual balancing act in Jane Schoenbrun’s formidable third film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a gonzo pop art slice of catharsis which works as both a recovery and discovery of the queer gaze in horror cinema. Effortlessly droll in its satirization of the academic approach in our contemporary retrospective drive to cannibalize but correct the formative inspirations of the past as a means to satisfy the demands of an arguably more enlightened generation, there’s a delirious amount of analysis pulsating through every passage.… Read the rest

Iván Granovsky’s ‘Jealous White Men’ (Working Title)- Everything We Know So Far …

mrqe — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:00:00 +0000

It’s been almost a decade between fiction feature films for Argentinian filmmaker Iván Granovsky, who premiered Los territorios at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2017. Prior to this, 2011’s documentary-fiction hybrid Glorious Accidents (co-directed with Marcus Lindeen) was his first venture into filmmaking. A producer for Matias Piñeiro and Mauro Andrizzi cinema and curator at the CATAPULTA lab at FICUNAM from 2019 to 2023 in Mexico City, a bit of geopolitics, auto-fiction, and blurring the lines with documentary, Granovsky put together quite the cast for his ambitious sophomore feature. Here is everything we know so far for (working title)… Iván Granovsky‘s Jealous White Men (aka Celosos Hombres Blancos).… Read the rest

‘Neon Bull’ & ‘The Blue Trail’ Gabriel Mascaro Launches Production Company

mrqe — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:15:29 +0000

In a rather lengthy profile piece we learnt that fresh from his brilliant Berlinale winner The Blue Trail (read review), Gabriel Mascaro is opening a production co. in his backyard of Recife, Brazil. Alongside Paula Cosenza, Trema will be focusing on “international co-productions, scripted series and auteur-driven cinema with global reach.” Below we have some projects worth keeping tabs on Three Dark Nights which was at the 2024 Venice Gap-Financing Market. João Paulo Miranda Maria who already has I Don’t Even Know Who I Was we now in post, will next be working on a film titled Rafael.… Read the rest

2026 TIFF: Paolo Strippoli, Anna Biller, Matthew Rankin & Eugene Kotlyarenko in Midnight Madness Section

mrqe — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:45:12 +0000

Last year, the Midnight Madness section received one heck of a thumbs up with Obsession landing a massive distribution deal. This edition, programmer Peter Kuplowsky has unveiled ten mostly blood-soaked oddities with a trio of North American premieres and seven world preems – one of them being an unlikely docu film titled Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney by Matthew Rankin. Paolo Strippoli‘s Venice Competition entry The Spiral, Sabu‘s Out of comp Venice entry Arrested Memory and Duncan Jones‘ Annecy International Animation Film Fest preemed Rogue Trooper will be shoring up as North American premieres while in the world premiere selection we find Anna Biller‘s The Face of Horror – the filmed in Prague ghost story featuring Jonah Hauer-King and Kristine Froseth while Spree filmmaker Eugene Kotlyarenko will present Vintage Violence – an action comedy set in Japan with Cole Sprouse and featuring the cinematography of Sean Price Williams.… Read the rest

2026 TIFF: Yung Chang, Shaunak Sen & Zarrar Kahn in Short Cuts Competition

mrqe — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:45:04 +0000

Leaning heavily on world premieres, TIFF’s 2026 Short Cuts programme welcomes back familiar names such as Yung Chang, Shaunak Sen and Zarrar Kahn while shining a spotlight on the next generation of emerging filmmakers. Docu filmmaker Yung Chang is transitioning into fiction film, and before he moves onto his fic feature debut Eggplant he brings us ‘The Highway’ — a haunting psychological horror starring Lu Huang. Shaunak Sen who gave us the masterwork All That Breathes will premiere ‘Termite’ – about a termite inspector named Ajith who navigates the complexities of friendship and love while confronting his own insecurities. Cannes selected In Flames filmmaker Zarrar Kahn will soon be lensing Suffering Is Optional, but in-between features he gives us ‘The Lion Does Not Concern Himself’ – a rom-com that is set in a gym.… Read the rest