Ioncinema

Production has begun on Philippe Lesage‘s highly anticipated I Just Want a Great Love Story, with a key change to the film’s original quartet. Théodore Pellerin, Charles Berling, Félix Kysyl will now be sparing with Return to Seoul (read review) star Park Ji-Min who has replaced Stacy Martin. Added to the ensemble we find the likes of Rose-Marie Perreault, Amaryllis Tremblay, Macha Limonchik, Laurent Lucas and Sophie Desmarais. Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Maxime De Cotret, Guillaume Laurin, Alexandre Goyette, Nour Shoukry and Noah Parker round out the cast. Lucas, Desmarais and Parker were all players in Lesage’s masterwork 2024 film Comme le feu (read review).… Read the rest

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“Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, NAZA reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” The mystery film for the upcoming Venice’s Golden Lion competition has been revealed and it’ll be quite the event. It was curious to see no documentary in the original lineup announcement and now we know why. Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s NAZA is that automatic jolt to the fest not unlike last year’s The Voice of Hind Rajab. The world premiere day takes place on September 10th. The question now is will TIFF and/or NYFF attempt to land the North American premiere?… Read the rest

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A seven-time Cannes competition filmmaker and Palme d’Or winner for 2014’s Winter Sleep, Turkish master auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan has settled into a remarkably consistent rhythm, unveiling a new feature roughly every four years. Defined by his meticulous compositions, natural landscapes, philosophical dialogue, and profound psychological inquiries with characters who are either intellectuals, teachers, photographers, civil servants, or artists. Focusing on failed communication and emotional distance, we adore a cinema that sits in silence and measures the philosophical space between its player set and the limits of self-knowledge. After premiering The Small Town (1997) and Clouds of May (1999) at the Berlinale, we’ve had Uzak (2002), Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), The Wild Pear Tree (2018) and About Dry Grasses (2023) load up the croisette.… Read the rest

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Invisible Missiles: Blaževičius Offers Chilly Portrayal of a Couple & Country in Crisis

Given its title, Andrius Blaževičius’ third outing, How to Divorce During the War, invites expectations of a very different kind of film than the one the filmmaker ultimately delivers, shaped by a distinctly imposed style. Instead of melodrama, terror and sensationalism, Blaževičius closely follows a Lithuanian couple and their young daughter when one spouse seeks a divorce just as Russia begins its invasion of Ukraine. Keeping viewers at arm’s length, there is a precise and chilling effect to the direction which offers a unique alternative to a Marriage Story but keeps the viewer at arms length.… Read the rest

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Over half a year has passed since the Sundance Film Festival U.S Dramatic Competition titles played at the final Park City edition of the festival. Our last check in over four months ago saw only four titles that had secured distribution after their festival runs. Now we have nine total and recently learned that the competition section will now move back up to a dozen offerings in 2027. Gone are the days of late night bidding wars, negotiations now take weeks and more commonly months to transpire. It remains to be seen whether the recent box office boom will reignite festival sales later on but Sundance has remained cautious at best for another year.… Read the rest

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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