Ioncinema – MRQE

Jeff Nichols’ ‘King Snake’ – Everything We Know So Far … (American Indie Edition)

mrqe — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:00:06 +0000

It’s been a thrill watching Little Rock, Arkansas native Jeff Nichols evolve into one of the defining voices in American independent cinema. He announced himself with the slow-burning powder keg that was Shotgun Stories (Sundance passed on the film, the Berlinale didn’t) before cementing his arrival with the apocalyptic brilliance of Take Shelter. Over nearly two decades, Nichols has built an impeccable filmography rooted in family, faith, and the fragile ties that bind us, effortlessly weaving together Southern Gothic, science fiction, romance, crime, and historical drama. Whether it’s Mud (2012), 2016’s Midnight Special and Loving (read review), or The Bikeriders (2023), his films return time and again to three defining obsessions: the mythic landscapes of the American South, fathers and sons navigating fractured relationships, and ordinary people confronting extraordinary forces—be they supernatural mysteries or history-changing battles for justice.… Read the rest

Géla Babluani’s ‘Young Stalin’ – Everything We Know So Far …

mrqe — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:00:10 +0000

Son of acclaimed Temur Babluani, Georgian-French filmmaker Géla Babluani blasted out of the gates when his feature debut 13 Tzameti traveled to the Venice Film Festival winning Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future for Best First Feature in 2005 and the then making a rare splash at Sundance in 2006 winning the World Cinema Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. His films look at fate, chance, isolation and violence as a social system, Babluani is one of the rare filmmakers to remake their own film for English speaking auds (13 was launched in 2010). His other films 2006’s L’héritage (co-directed with his father) and 2017’s Money weren’t as widely acclaimed but this next project might put the filmmaker back on the map.… Read the rest

Team Sport: Suzanne Lindon Places Pierfrancesco Favino in Thorny Situation in ‘L’Équipe’

mrqe — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:15:38 +0000

With Gustave Kervern’s Voilà, c’est fini and Guillaume Nicloux’s Garde du corps set for the near future, Suzanne Lindon has been taking on some acting gigs, but we’re more excited about her return behind the camera. Cineuropa reports that Pierfrancesco Favino and Simon Boublil will star in L’Équipe – which is currently in production. Ad Vitam Films’ Alexandra Henochsberg is producing – with production taking place in Paris. Italy’s Indiana Production are also producing. Since her feature debut Spring Blossom (read ★★★ review) was part of the canceled pandemic Cannes edition — our guess is they’ll be chasing a second Croisette berth for her sophomore feature.… Read the rest

Her Private Hell | Review

mrqe — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:00:31 +0000

What Have They Done to Your Daughters?: Refn Returns with Vacuous Vengeance

After disappearing into television for the past decade, Nicolas Winding Refn once again rears into the cinema with Her Private Hell, which unfortunately is an insufferable, nonsensical exercise suggesting his narrative coffers remain empty. While it would appear Refn desires to channel a Lynchian nightmare subconscious realm, the extravagant neon-lit demimonde from DP Magnus Nordenhof Jønck aligns more with a Tron-inspired music video mentality, exploring ambiguous themes about eroding kinship roles between fathers and their daughters who are routinely devoured by an exploitative entertainment industry informed by a misogynistic culture.… Read the rest

Sheep in the Box | Review

mrqe — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:00:17 +0000

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK: Koreeda Explores Cruise Control with AI

Somehow, despite being set in the ‘not too distant future,’ Hirokzau Kore-eda’s twee take on robotic children in Sheep in the Box manages to seem like an anachronistic blast from the past. Its title, lifted from the classic 1943 children’s novella The Little Prince, is a thematic reference to how imagination allows us to explore what really matters is on the inside. With a plot usually utilized in nightmarish genre films with robots or cloning (think B-movie drivel, such as 2004’s Godsend), a Japanese couple mourning the loss of their kidnapped son from two years prior are headhunted for a promotional offer to receive his likeness duplicated as a completely passable humanoid robot.… Read the rest

A Sad and Beautiful World | Review

mrqe — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:00:47 +0000

No Man is an Island: Aris Explores Childhood, Couplehood and Parenthood with Flip Book Speeds

Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris utilizes the three distinct yet related measurements of time elapsed, time apart, and time away to craft an ode to the invisible, happy-chance forces that govern human connection. With a focus on the cosmos’s funny way of intervening in matters of the heart, his film, A Sad and Beautiful World, lackadaisically shifts across tones, eras, and economic struggles. At its core, the fiction offering captures an inner-child wonder that still nourishes some adults, raising the question of whether an individual will choose to break the cycle of circumstance or perpetuate it for the next generation.… Read the rest

Rosebush Pruning | Review

mrqe — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:00:16 +0000

The Killing of a Sacred Dogtooth: Ainouz Paints with Contempt

Karim Aïnouz doesn’t so much eat the rich as he does regurgitate them in his latest feature, Rosebush Pruning, a hyper stylized rehash of Marco Bellocchio’s breakout classic, Fists in the Pocket (1965). Tonally, this feels much more like a dead end tangent to the Greek Weird Wave thanks to screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, who seems to have approached Bellocchio’s masterwork as a sordid sequel to The Lobster (2015). Aïnouz, whose previous feature Motel Destino (2024) attempted to resuscitate The Postman Always Rings Twice through a vaguely queer lens, lustily follows a similar pattern of lost souls indefinitely confined within the very abode which defines and sustains their existence.… Read the rest

2026 Venice: Gábor Reisz, Rami Kodeih, Paul Schrader & Gael García Bernal in Venice Spotlight/Venice Open

mrqe — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:00:46 +0000

With a bit of rebranding (now sounds like a tennis ATP tour event) the Venice Open section which houses the non comp non-fiction films, also has a firm eleven fiction films with a lot of big name auteurs in not necessarily lesser films but items that are a better fit without a run at the Golden Lion. This year we find the likes of Gianni Amelio (No Pain), Mario Martone (Trick), Kornél Mundruczó (Place to Be), Sabu (Arrested Memory) and Paul Schrader (The Basics of Philosophy). In the Venice Spotlight section (berthed from the Orrizonti section) we find items that need to be profiled but perhaps aren’t a fit elsewhere.… Read the rest

2026 Venice: Gibney, Kopple, Kossakovsky, Loktev, Lorentzen, Dweck/Kershaw & Mariano Llinás in S-tier Level Docs Line-Up!

mrqe — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:00:39 +0000

This is not hyperbole. The Venice Film Festival have unveiled perhaps the most stacked Out-of-Competition Non-Fiction line-up in decades. It’s a who’s who list of some of the best working docu filmmakers in the business – they’re all shoring up in 2026 and some with punishing (in the context of a film festival) runtimes. Oscar winning legend Barbara Kopple brings us Union Town – we don’t even need to put a synopsis here to understand her focus. The Truffle Hunters pairing of Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck go to the vineyards of Burgundy, a community bound by earth and ritual passes down its greatest inheritance, the art of pleasure.… Read the rest

2026 Venice: Anuparna Roy, Jacqueline Lentzou, Rubaiyat Hossain, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng & Robert Greene in Orizzonti Comp

mrqe — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:00:46 +0000

Cannes have the Un Certain Regard section, and Venice has the Orizzonti. While we do find some fresh new voices from the nineteen films selected we also find fresh new works from the likes of India’s Anuparna Roy, Greece’s Jacqueline Lentzou, Bangladeshi’s Rubaiyat Hossain, Thailand’s Phuttiphong Aroonpheng and the United States of America in Robert Greene.

Like Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari, Anuparna Roy will make it two films in two back to back Venice editions. She won the Best Director award last year for Songs of Forgotten Trees, now she brings Lovers In The Blue Night which is set in Mumbai, the film follows four migrants – a gay husband, his wife working in a bar, a thief, and a pimp.… Read the rest