Aleksandar Petrović’s 1965 interlinked stories focus on the changes wrought in one young Yugoslavian by the brutality of the war and its aftermath
Serbian film-maker Aleksandar Petrović was a member of the former Yugoslavia’s insurgent Black Wave cinema movement; it also included Dušan Makavejev’s Wr: The Mysteries of the Organism. Now Petrović’s fascinating and mysterious anti-war triptych Three, from 1965, has been revived, performed and presented in a distinctively self-aware, almost theatrical way. It’s a succession of three interlinked tales from the horror of the second world war, based on stories by Serbian author Antonije Isaković.
Milos, played by Serbian actor Velimir “Bata” Zivojinovic, is a student who is to become an anti-German partisan after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and then, at the war’s end, a cold, calculating communist state-security officer. In the first story, we see a crowd of terrified civilians in 1941, waiting for the Nazis’ imminent invasion.
Serbian film-maker Aleksandar Petrović was a member of the former Yugoslavia’s insurgent Black Wave cinema movement; it also included Dušan Makavejev’s Wr: The Mysteries of the Organism. Now Petrović’s fascinating and mysterious anti-war triptych Three, from 1965, has been revived, performed and presented in a distinctively self-aware, almost theatrical way. It’s a succession of three interlinked tales from the horror of the second world war, based on stories by Serbian author Antonije Isaković.
Milos, played by Serbian actor Velimir “Bata” Zivojinovic, is a student who is to become an anti-German partisan after the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and then, at the war’s end, a cold, calculating communist state-security officer. In the first story, we see a crowd of terrified civilians in 1941, waiting for the Nazis’ imminent invasion.
- 7/29/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Med Hondo’s 1979 musical extravaganza West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty is a satirical skewering of the legacy of French imperialism in the West Indies and beyond. From the outset, it defies categorization through its distinct sense of free association as it leaps from one colorful image to the next, often shunning context along the way. Throughout Hondo’s film, the xenophobic and racist rhetoric of haughty, predominately white French aristocrats, bureaucrats, and citizens is combatted, challenged, or lampooned by various African figures. Some are slaves, some are revolutionaries, while some are simply power hungry. The result is a deliriously iconoclastic anti-colonialist work that’s worthy of the finest films from roughly the same period by Ousmane Sembene and Dijbril Diop Mambéty.
Adapted by Hondo and Daniel Boukman from the latter’s novel Les Negriers, West Indies traces an epic history of colonial oppression and enslavement in the West Indies,...
Adapted by Hondo and Daniel Boukman from the latter’s novel Les Negriers, West Indies traces an epic history of colonial oppression and enslavement in the West Indies,...
- 3/17/2024
- by Clayton Dillard
- Slant Magazine
A Yugoslavian pulp classic from 1967, this tale of a young woman’s erotic misadventures more than matches the French new wave for black humour
Dušan Makavejev was the Serbian creator of the incendiary 1971 movie Wr: Mysteries of the Organism, the final word in that title destined forever to be misread as “orgasm”. He was a satirist, political subversive and eroto-evangelist, a performance artist of ex-Yugoslavia’s cinematic Black Wave. Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator is an early work from 1967, a brilliant pulp classic which showed that the 1960s could swing behind the iron curtain. I wonder: did anything in the French new wave measure up to this level of nihilist black humour? Godard gave us Breathless; Makavejev gave us an actual breathless corpse.
It’s about a bored young woman working for a telephone exchange: she wears an audio headset, pushing plugs into sockets and putting people through.
Dušan Makavejev was the Serbian creator of the incendiary 1971 movie Wr: Mysteries of the Organism, the final word in that title destined forever to be misread as “orgasm”. He was a satirist, political subversive and eroto-evangelist, a performance artist of ex-Yugoslavia’s cinematic Black Wave. Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator is an early work from 1967, a brilliant pulp classic which showed that the 1960s could swing behind the iron curtain. I wonder: did anything in the French new wave measure up to this level of nihilist black humour? Godard gave us Breathless; Makavejev gave us an actual breathless corpse.
It’s about a bored young woman working for a telephone exchange: she wears an audio headset, pushing plugs into sockets and putting people through.
- 8/14/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
On a recent visit to Zagreb in Croatia, I was stopped in my tracks by this poster, above, in the Museum of Contemporary Art. It is a design for the First Science Fiction Fair held in 1972 in the museum’s previous incarnation as the Gallery of Contemporary Art. The poster’s artist, Mihajlo Arsovski, had been designing exhibition posters for the Gallery for more than a decade and this poster was awarded the Gold Medal at the International Poster Exhibition in Varese, Italy, in 1973. After finding it, I posted about the design on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram and asked whether anyone followed my account in Croatia, which led to my meeting up with two Croatian artists/designers Neven Udovičić and Sara Kern Gacesa. Neven told me more about Arsovski, who had died at the age of 83 in 2020, and also about Boris Bućan, whose famous poster for Stravinsky...
- 8/5/2023
- MUBI
Rushes: Fall Festival Preview, Lucile Hadžihalilović's "La Tour de Glace," Atom Egoyan's Soundscapes
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSMay December.The first flurries of fall festival news have arrived. The New York Film Festival opens on September 29 with the North American premiere of Todd Haynes's May December—read Lawrence Garcia's take on the "immediately invigorating" film here, toward the conclusion of his Cannes dispatch. The San Sebastián Film Festival (September 22 through 30) has announced its first group of competition titles: among them, Cristi Puiu’s Mmxx, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Martín Rejtman’s La prática, and Robin Campillo’s Red Island. Finally, the Venice Film Festival will open on August 30 with the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers.Lucile Hadžihalilović has announced her follow-up to Earwig (2021), the 1970s-set La Tour de Glace. Based on a brief plot synopsis,...
- 7/12/2023
- MUBI
Tom Luddy wasn’t famous exactly. But he had a huge impact on film culture via Uc Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive in the ’60s and the Telluride Film Festival in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and up to his death in February at age 79. And while he was based in the Bay Area, a theater full of Luddy-philes from both coasts turned up for his tribute at New York’s packed Paris Theater on April 15. They represented the cross-cultural network that Luddy created over decades of introducing people, sharing his favorite film gems, and luring folks to Telluride by inviting their films or bringing them in as guest directors (like Stephen Sondheim or Salman Rushdie) or tributees (like Athol Fugard or Michael Powell). Once they came, they usually came back.
Five of the stalwarts in the Luddy family, who have supported the festival on the Telluride board of directors and in other ways,...
Five of the stalwarts in the Luddy family, who have supported the festival on the Telluride board of directors and in other ways,...
- 4/16/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Tom Luddy, the understated co-founder and artistic director of the Telluride Film Festival who championed world cinema, spotlighted overlooked gems and saluted legends during his near half-century run with the event, has died. He was 79.
Luddy died peacefully Monday in Berkeley, California, after a long illness, Telluride senior vp public relations Shannon Mitchell told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The world has lost a rare ingredient that we’ll all be searching for, for some time,” Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a statement. “I would sometimes find myself feeling sad for those who didn’t get to know Tom Luddy properly. He had a sphinx-like quality that took a little time to get around, for some.
“But once you knew him, you were welcomed into a kingdom of art, history, intelligence, humor and joie de vivre that you knew you couldn’t be without. He made life richer. Magical. He...
Luddy died peacefully Monday in Berkeley, California, after a long illness, Telluride senior vp public relations Shannon Mitchell told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The world has lost a rare ingredient that we’ll all be searching for, for some time,” Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a statement. “I would sometimes find myself feeling sad for those who didn’t get to know Tom Luddy properly. He had a sphinx-like quality that took a little time to get around, for some.
“But once you knew him, you were welcomed into a kingdom of art, history, intelligence, humor and joie de vivre that you knew you couldn’t be without. He made life richer. Magical. He...
- 2/14/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
Tony Barry, the veteran Australian film and television actor who starred in cult Kiwi comedy Goodbye Pork Pie and had a long-running role in the television drama series The Time of Our Lives, has died. He was 81.
Barry’s friend, the New Zealand filmmaker Gaylene Preston, wrote on Facebook that the actor had died in Murwillumbah, Australia after a long illness. “He was one of a kind. A fierce fighter for the underdog, working for indigenous rights and as part of rehabilitation [programs] in the justice system and for the environment,” Preston wrote.
“Tony Barry gone – lovely man, terrific actor and hero of mine. Sad today,” tweeted Sam Neill who starred with Barry in Michael Blakemore’s Country Life.
Born on Aug. 28, 1941, in Queensland, Australia, Barry made his screen debut in 1968 in the television series Skippy: the Bush Kangaroo, which he followed with appearances...
Tony Barry, the veteran Australian film and television actor who starred in cult Kiwi comedy Goodbye Pork Pie and had a long-running role in the television drama series The Time of Our Lives, has died. He was 81.
Barry’s friend, the New Zealand filmmaker Gaylene Preston, wrote on Facebook that the actor had died in Murwillumbah, Australia after a long illness. “He was one of a kind. A fierce fighter for the underdog, working for indigenous rights and as part of rehabilitation [programs] in the justice system and for the environment,” Preston wrote.
“Tony Barry gone – lovely man, terrific actor and hero of mine. Sad today,” tweeted Sam Neill who starred with Barry in Michael Blakemore’s Country Life.
Born on Aug. 28, 1941, in Queensland, Australia, Barry made his screen debut in 1968 in the television series Skippy: the Bush Kangaroo, which he followed with appearances...
- 12/22/2022
- by Abid Rahman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The fourth annual Pingyao International Film Festival will run as an in-person event from Oct. 10 to 19 in the central Chinese province of Shanxi.
Chinese director Diao Yinan, who won the 2014 Golden Bear for his gritty thriller “Black Coal, Thin Ice” and premiered his latest neo-noir “Wild Goose Lake” at Cannes last year, will act as “festival mentor,” hosting special screenings of his own works and a masterclass.
In a video message, Diao complimented Pingyao on being “unique and professional,” a place that “gathers people like a bonfire, with everyone chatting around.” He praised the festival for its support of young talent, saying that it has “provided a platform for [young people] to join each other, to discuss openly and explore freely.”
Founded by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (“A Touch of Sin”) and Marco Muller, the former director of the Venice Film Festival who serves as Pingyao’s artistic director, the festival unfolds...
Chinese director Diao Yinan, who won the 2014 Golden Bear for his gritty thriller “Black Coal, Thin Ice” and premiered his latest neo-noir “Wild Goose Lake” at Cannes last year, will act as “festival mentor,” hosting special screenings of his own works and a masterclass.
In a video message, Diao complimented Pingyao on being “unique and professional,” a place that “gathers people like a bonfire, with everyone chatting around.” He praised the festival for its support of young talent, saying that it has “provided a platform for [young people] to join each other, to discuss openly and explore freely.”
Founded by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (“A Touch of Sin”) and Marco Muller, the former director of the Venice Film Festival who serves as Pingyao’s artistic director, the festival unfolds...
- 9/29/2020
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
In the past four months or so since I last did this, the following on my @movieposterofthday (leave off the last e for elegance) Instagram has more than tripled, which makes this best-of round-up more competitive. Sadly, as is often the case, a lot of my posts were occasioned by the passing of an actor or director, or, in the case of the most popular poster yet, by a composer. The lovely two-color American half sheet for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was posted in honor of Michel Legrand, who passed away in January at 86 just the day after Serbian director Dušan Makavejev, who was also 86 and whose ribald German poster for Sweet Movie also made the top 20. Other passings recognized were Stanley Donen (with a Japanese Funny Face), Nicolas Roeg (a Us Performance), and Bruno Ganz (a French Wings of Desire). It’s impossible to tell if people are liking...
- 3/22/2019
- MUBI
Dusan Makavejev, the Yugoslavian writer, director and vanguard of creative cinema known for his offbeat vision and erotic work in the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 86.
Makavejev died Friday in Belgrade, Serbia, Marija Radonjilc, the head of his alma mater The University of the Arts, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school last year.
Montenegro (1981), which he filmed in Sweden, was perhaps his most widely known film. The black comedy centered on a bored American housewife (Susan Anspach) in Stockholm who has an adventure with a group of ...
Makavejev died Friday in Belgrade, Serbia, Marija Radonjilc, the head of his alma mater The University of the Arts, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school last year.
Montenegro (1981), which he filmed in Sweden, was perhaps his most widely known film. The black comedy centered on a bored American housewife (Susan Anspach) in Stockholm who has an adventure with a group of ...
- 1/28/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dusan Makavejev, the Yugoslavian writer, director and vanguard of creative cinema known for his offbeat vision and erotic work in the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 86.
Makavejev died Friday in Belgrade, Serbia, Marija Radonjilc, the head of his alma mater The University of the Arts, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school last year.
Montenegro (1981), which he filmed in Sweden, was perhaps his most widely known film. The black comedy centered on a bored American housewife (Susan Anspach) in Stockholm who has an adventure with a group of ...
Makavejev died Friday in Belgrade, Serbia, Marija Radonjilc, the head of his alma mater The University of the Arts, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school last year.
Montenegro (1981), which he filmed in Sweden, was perhaps his most widely known film. The black comedy centered on a bored American housewife (Susan Anspach) in Stockholm who has an adventure with a group of ...
- 1/28/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
It was an unlikely friendship and business partnership that has outlasted most Hollywood marriages. Victor Loewy was born in Romania; Robert Lantos, pictured at left, came to Montreal from Hungary.
“Hungarians have a sense of superiority to Romanians,” says Lantos, dryly — it’s been a running joke between them for years. Yet, the two McGill students formed a bond. Lantos would hitchhike to school. Loewy picked him up.
Together, in the early 1970s, they had formed a tiny company named Vivafilm and managed to acquire the Canadian rights to the “Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival” — it was their first hit.
“My main interest was to make films, and Victor’s main interest was to make money. So we matched up perfectly,” says Lantos.
From a tiny office filled with borrowed furniture, the duo launched an empire. Lantos was the wordsmith and Loewy handled all the graphics for...
“Hungarians have a sense of superiority to Romanians,” says Lantos, dryly — it’s been a running joke between them for years. Yet, the two McGill students formed a bond. Lantos would hitchhike to school. Loewy picked him up.
Together, in the early 1970s, they had formed a tiny company named Vivafilm and managed to acquire the Canadian rights to the “Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival” — it was their first hit.
“My main interest was to make films, and Victor’s main interest was to make money. So we matched up perfectly,” says Lantos.
From a tiny office filled with borrowed furniture, the duo launched an empire. Lantos was the wordsmith and Loewy handled all the graphics for...
- 5/8/2018
- by Katherine Brodsky
- Variety Film + TV
Pazucus: Island of Vomit and Despair is new surreal film from writer and director Gurcius Gewdner, which has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival on Saturday 27th January. I got chance to ask Gurcius a few questions about what we can expect, his inspirations and designer vomit bags.
What can we expect from the film?
You can expect a different movie, a different experience. A mix of marginal cinema from Brazil with everything that I find on the way to put it on an insanity blender. I cannot promise that will be enjoyable for everyone, but it is, a different experience, it doesn’t matter if you love or hate. And it needs to be watched till the end, to capture the full trip, if you leave at the first half, you will not get the full brain damage package. It is a scatological roller coaster of screaming,...
What can we expect from the film?
You can expect a different movie, a different experience. A mix of marginal cinema from Brazil with everything that I find on the way to put it on an insanity blender. I cannot promise that will be enjoyable for everyone, but it is, a different experience, it doesn’t matter if you love or hate. And it needs to be watched till the end, to capture the full trip, if you leave at the first half, you will not get the full brain damage package. It is a scatological roller coaster of screaming,...
- 1/26/2018
- by Philip Rogers
- Nerdly
Above: Polish poster for The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria, 1965). Designer: Jerzy Flisak.As the 55th New York Film Festival winds down this weekend, I thought I’d look back half a century at the films of the 5th edition. That 1967 festival, programmed by Amos Vogel, Richard Roud, Arthur Knight, Andrew Sarris and Susan Sontag, featured 21 new films, all but three of which were from Europe (six of them from France, 2 and 1/7 of them directed by Godard), all of which showed at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall. (They also programmed Gance’s Napoleon, Mamoulian’s Applause and King Vidor’s Show People in the retrospective slots). The only director to have a film in both the 1967 festival and the 2017 edition is Agnès Varda, who was one of the directors of the omnibus Far From Vietnam and was then already 12 years into her filmmaking career.It will come as...
- 10/13/2017
- MUBI
This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists. The following interview, conducted by a member of the Critics Academy, focuses on a participant in the affiliated Filmmakers Academy program at the festival.
Watching “Varvari” (“Barbarians”), the first film feature of Yugoslavian filmmaker Ivan Ikić, one could easily have an impression of déjà-vu. Shown as part of the Filmmaker Academy’s screenings at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival, the film set in Yugoslavia depicts youth living on margins of society, that recalls the troubled kids populating the films of Alan Clarke or Ken Loach.
Read More: Here’s What One Young Filmmaker Learned From Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang...
Watching “Varvari” (“Barbarians”), the first film feature of Yugoslavian filmmaker Ivan Ikić, one could easily have an impression of déjà-vu. Shown as part of the Filmmaker Academy’s screenings at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival, the film set in Yugoslavia depicts youth living on margins of society, that recalls the troubled kids populating the films of Alan Clarke or Ken Loach.
Read More: Here’s What One Young Filmmaker Learned From Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang...
- 8/12/2016
- by Fanta Sylla
- Indiewire
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Kill! is an entertaining and unusual take on the samurai/swordplay genre that plays for laughs many of the conventional tropes and set-ups common in the classic films from that tradition. I was fascinated observing how many of the fighting techniques, interpersonal conflicts, man vs. world showdowns and dramatic battle scenes that impact viewers with awe-inspiring tension can become a showcase of hilarity with just a slight exaggeration of tone, body language or facial expression (or simply cranking the fans that stir up dust clouds an extra notch or two.) Barking dialog that would come across as solemn and severe in more straightforward, traditional chanbara epics conveys much of the same surface meaning in advancing the story along in Kill! but also ends up generating a nice side helping of mirth in the process. Though at least one review considers...
Kill! is an entertaining and unusual take on the samurai/swordplay genre that plays for laughs many of the conventional tropes and set-ups common in the classic films from that tradition. I was fascinated observing how many of the fighting techniques, interpersonal conflicts, man vs. world showdowns and dramatic battle scenes that impact viewers with awe-inspiring tension can become a showcase of hilarity with just a slight exaggeration of tone, body language or facial expression (or simply cranking the fans that stir up dust clouds an extra notch or two.) Barking dialog that would come across as solemn and severe in more straightforward, traditional chanbara epics conveys much of the same surface meaning in advancing the story along in Kill! but also ends up generating a nice side helping of mirth in the process. Though at least one review considers...
- 6/5/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 18: Dušan Makavejev Free Radical.
About the films:
There’s never been another filmmaker quite like Dušan Makavejev. Even in the 1960s, when all of cinema’s rules seemed to be breaking down and artists such as Godard, Cassavetes, and Marker were dissolving the boundary between fiction and documentary, Yugoslavia’s Makavejev stood alone. His films about political and sexual liberation were revolutionary, raucous, and ribald. Across these, his wild, collagelike first three films, Makavejev investigates—with a tonic mix of earnestness and whimsy—love, death, and work; the legacy of war and the absurdity of daily life in a Communist state; criminology and hypnosis; strudels and strongmen.
About the films:
There’s never been another filmmaker quite like Dušan Makavejev. Even in the 1960s, when all of cinema’s rules seemed to be breaking down and artists such as Godard, Cassavetes, and Marker were dissolving the boundary between fiction and documentary, Yugoslavia’s Makavejev stood alone. His films about political and sexual liberation were revolutionary, raucous, and ribald. Across these, his wild, collagelike first three films, Makavejev investigates—with a tonic mix of earnestness and whimsy—love, death, and work; the legacy of war and the absurdity of daily life in a Communist state; criminology and hypnosis; strudels and strongmen.
- 12/16/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Peter Kubelka. Photo: (S8) Mostra de Cine Periférico. María Meseguer.At the end of Martina Kudláček's biographical documentary Fragments of Kubelka (2012), the avant-garde filmmaker Peter Kubelka is shown in his kitchen in Austria, expressing in words and action his passion for cooking, as he prepares Wiener Schnitzel. Kubelka has for many years taught cooking alongside film and by talking about food he is able simultaneously to elaborate on his long-held views on cinema, and the uniqueness of each physical medium as a conduit of meaningful expression.Metaphor is essential to Kubelka’s vision. He compares the process of making and eating Wiener Schnitzel, or any dish, to creating and ‘reading’ a metaphor—an “edible metaphor”. Elsewhere in the documentary he is seen lecturing on the qualities of the film strip. Kubelka likens editing to cooking, whereby a selection of images—like recipe ingredients—are mixed, creating a satisfying totality. The ‘dance’ of the cook,...
- 8/24/2015
- by Yusef Sayed
- MUBI
Top Croatian winners are Number 55, The Reaper and Happy Endings; Concrete Night wins international competition.
The 61st Pula Film Festival handed out its awards in the city’s stunning amphitheatre last night (July 26), with Kristijan Milić’s Number 55 winning best Croatian Film.
The jury said its award went to “the film produced according to highest professional standards and the film that achieves an authentic and emotional presentation of a true event from the Croatian War of Independence.”
The winning packages includes €10,000 worth of post production services from Teleking.
The film swept a number of prizes in the Croatian competition, including best screenplay and best director.
Set in 1991, Number 55 is based on a true story of a small group of Croatian soldiers who are ambushed while on patrol and have to hide from rebel Serbs, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian Special Forces.
The Reaper, about a lonely man coming to terms with his past crimes, won the two...
The 61st Pula Film Festival handed out its awards in the city’s stunning amphitheatre last night (July 26), with Kristijan Milić’s Number 55 winning best Croatian Film.
The jury said its award went to “the film produced according to highest professional standards and the film that achieves an authentic and emotional presentation of a true event from the Croatian War of Independence.”
The winning packages includes €10,000 worth of post production services from Teleking.
The film swept a number of prizes in the Croatian competition, including best screenplay and best director.
Set in 1991, Number 55 is based on a true story of a small group of Croatian soldiers who are ambushed while on patrol and have to hide from rebel Serbs, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian Special Forces.
The Reaper, about a lonely man coming to terms with his past crimes, won the two...
- 7/27/2014
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Top Croatian winners are Number 55, The Reaper and Happy Endings; Concrete Night wins international competition.
The 61st Pula Film Festival handed out its awards in the city’s stunning amphitheatre last night, with Kristijan Milić’s Number 55 winning best Croatian Film. The jury said its award went to “the film produced according to highest professional standards and the film that achieves an authentic and emotional presentation of a true event from the Croatian War of Independence.” The winning packages includes €10,000 worth of post production services from Teleking.
The film swept a number of prizes in the Croatian competition, including best screenplay and best director.
Number 55 is based on a true story in 1991, when a small group of Croatian soldiers on patrol are ambushed and have to hide from rebel Serbs, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian Special Forces.
The Reaper, about a lonely man coming to terms with his past crimes, won the two...
The 61st Pula Film Festival handed out its awards in the city’s stunning amphitheatre last night, with Kristijan Milić’s Number 55 winning best Croatian Film. The jury said its award went to “the film produced according to highest professional standards and the film that achieves an authentic and emotional presentation of a true event from the Croatian War of Independence.” The winning packages includes €10,000 worth of post production services from Teleking.
The film swept a number of prizes in the Croatian competition, including best screenplay and best director.
Number 55 is based on a true story in 1991, when a small group of Croatian soldiers on patrol are ambushed and have to hide from rebel Serbs, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian Special Forces.
The Reaper, about a lonely man coming to terms with his past crimes, won the two...
- 7/27/2014
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Above: 1968 poster for Grand Prix (John Frankenheimer, USA, 1966).
Last weekend I came across a bizarre poster, which you can see below, for Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause: a late 60s Czech design which reimagines James Dean as a long haired, barefoot East European hippie. This got me digging into the work of its author on the estimable and essential Czech movie poster site Terry Posters (named in honor of Terry Gilliam). The artist Eva Galová-Vodrázková was born in 1940 and, after studying at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, designed numerous film posters between 1966 and 1972 (Terry Posters has forty-two of them on their site). Her bio says she gave up poster design after “normalisation changes in the venture,” whatever that means, and has since worked as a textile designer. What attracted me to her poster work is a certain devil-may-care quality—evidenced in her Rebel—coupled with a powerful sense of composition.
Last weekend I came across a bizarre poster, which you can see below, for Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause: a late 60s Czech design which reimagines James Dean as a long haired, barefoot East European hippie. This got me digging into the work of its author on the estimable and essential Czech movie poster site Terry Posters (named in honor of Terry Gilliam). The artist Eva Galová-Vodrázková was born in 1940 and, after studying at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, designed numerous film posters between 1966 and 1972 (Terry Posters has forty-two of them on their site). Her bio says she gave up poster design after “normalisation changes in the venture,” whatever that means, and has since worked as a textile designer. What attracted me to her poster work is a certain devil-may-care quality—evidenced in her Rebel—coupled with a powerful sense of composition.
- 12/21/2012
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
"Swedish actor Erland Josephson, who collaborated with legendary film director Ingmar Bergman in more than 40 films and plays, has died," reports the AP. He was 88. "Josephson was born in Stockholm in 1923 and met Bergman while training as an amateur actor at 16. He appeared in several Bergman plays and films. He shot to international stardom with the role of Johan in Berman's film Scenes from a Marriage, in 1973. Josephson also starred in Andrey Tarkovskiy's films Nostalghia [1983] and The Sacrifice [1986]."
"It is Josephson's face which makes him so effective on film," reads his entry in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, "that bearlike aspect, his ability to look lost and forlorn, to convey a sense of suffering and bewilderment, in spite of his bluff exterior. Were one to repeat Kuleshov's famous experiment of the 1920s and to intercut the same shot of Josephson with images of joy, of sadness, of anger,...
"It is Josephson's face which makes him so effective on film," reads his entry in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, "that bearlike aspect, his ability to look lost and forlorn, to convey a sense of suffering and bewilderment, in spite of his bluff exterior. Were one to repeat Kuleshov's famous experiment of the 1920s and to intercut the same shot of Josephson with images of joy, of sadness, of anger,...
- 2/29/2012
- MUBI
Mladen Djordevic's wonderfully transgressive The Life and Death of A Porno Gang is a romantic lust-for-life road movie that happens to be covered in blood, sweat, cum, vomit and more than a few honest tears. In a round about way, the film could almost, but not quite, slot into formula: love and passion broken on the rocks of eastern Europe. But its grungy near-documentary style, it lies somewhere in between The Misfortunates, Ex-Drummer and Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie, elements seemed to loosely evoke the Otto Muehl segments, and manages to tuck some of the more 'it was our time and place' elements away from the obvious.
The story follows Marko, a struggling young director fresh out of film school, as he attempts to combine his passion for genre films with his desire to make something of artistic or political relevance. Finding nobody who seems to understand his vision, he...
The story follows Marko, a struggling young director fresh out of film school, as he attempts to combine his passion for genre films with his desire to make something of artistic or political relevance. Finding nobody who seems to understand his vision, he...
- 10/9/2010
- Screen Anarchy
For the second consecutive year, my hometown of Grand Rapids Mi is hosting ArtPrize, a citywide art festival that will end this coming weekend with the award of $449,000 in cash prizes, including a cool quarter-million to the overall winner. ArtPrize has come up with a hybrid of Facebook-style “liking” and American Idol’s popularity contest to determine the winners, and with votes cast by a wide cross-section of the general public, it’s not surprising that some of the artists who are serious about becoming finalists base their appeal to the masses more on kitsch and cleverness than on refined artistic techniques or challenging thematic statements. Last year, one of the big money winners was a guy who made large portraits of attractive women using red, yellow, blue, black and white push-pins as his pixels. Anyone who’s ever worked with the most rudimentary digital paint program could see what he was up to,...
- 10/4/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
One of the most exciting programmes at Fantasia this year is its Subversive Serbia, a showcase of a wide variety of aesthetics and styles in the exciting new wave of Serbian filmmakers. It is stuff like this, getting a major coup over other prestige festivals such as Venice, Berlin or Toronto, that makes Fantasia so much more than a simply a fan and genre festival.
Mladen Djordevic's wonderfully transgressive The Life and Death of A Porno Gang is a romantic lust-for-life road movie that happens to be covered in blood, sweat, cum, vomit and more than a few honest tears. In a round about way, the film could almost, but not quite, slot into formula: love and passion broken on the rocks of eastern Europe. But its grungy near-documentary style, it lies somewhere in between The Misfortunates, Ex-Drummer and Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie, elements seemed to loosely evoke the Otto Muehl segments,...
Mladen Djordevic's wonderfully transgressive The Life and Death of A Porno Gang is a romantic lust-for-life road movie that happens to be covered in blood, sweat, cum, vomit and more than a few honest tears. In a round about way, the film could almost, but not quite, slot into formula: love and passion broken on the rocks of eastern Europe. But its grungy near-documentary style, it lies somewhere in between The Misfortunates, Ex-Drummer and Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie, elements seemed to loosely evoke the Otto Muehl segments,...
- 7/11/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Just days ago, Cahiers du Cinéma named Alain Resnais's Wild Grass as the best film of 2009, so how very appropriate it is that the Recyclage de luxe Online Film Festival presents as its final film, free to viewers in the UK over 18, Renais's debut feature; it's practically a 50th anniversary presentation.
"'I think that in a few years, in ten, twenty, or thirty years, we will know whether Hiroshima mon amour was the most important film since the war, the first modern film of sound cinema.' That's Eric Rohmer," notes Kent Jones for Criterion, "in a July 1959 round-table discussion between the members of Cahiers du Cinéma's editorial staff, devoted to Alain Resnais's groundbreaking first feature. Rohmer's remark is in perfect sync with the spirit of the film, which, as he says later in the discussion, 'has a very strong sense of the future, particularly the anguish of the future.
"'I think that in a few years, in ten, twenty, or thirty years, we will know whether Hiroshima mon amour was the most important film since the war, the first modern film of sound cinema.' That's Eric Rohmer," notes Kent Jones for Criterion, "in a July 1959 round-table discussion between the members of Cahiers du Cinéma's editorial staff, devoted to Alain Resnais's groundbreaking first feature. Rohmer's remark is in perfect sync with the spirit of the film, which, as he says later in the discussion, 'has a very strong sense of the future, particularly the anguish of the future.
- 12/28/2009
- MUBI
[Note: Simon accidentally omitted this from his original Disturbing Movies List but we think it was worth waiting for.--ed]
18. Sweet Movie artistic: 7 / gross out; 6
Once you begin to watch this 70's oddity--an obscure and shocking ode to the joys of communal living and nonconformist thinking--you soon think to yourself: "When is something going to happen?' And then realize nothing is going to happen...at least not in the way you think or could reasonably expect. Director Dusan Makavejev's bizarre trip down a river in Amsterdam in a ship of revelry and rebellion--a journey both literal and figural into heart of counterculture idealism--consists of a surreal series of episodes, loosely involving the strange adventures of a beauty contestant.
"Miss Monde 1984" symbolizes just about everything wrong with American capitalism (greed, possession, conversion of people into commodities) and, like the protagonist of Terry Southern's Candy, another well-known freak-out, she encounters a series of lovers and loonies who defile or enlighten her in one way or another (in the process,...
18. Sweet Movie artistic: 7 / gross out; 6
Once you begin to watch this 70's oddity--an obscure and shocking ode to the joys of communal living and nonconformist thinking--you soon think to yourself: "When is something going to happen?' And then realize nothing is going to happen...at least not in the way you think or could reasonably expect. Director Dusan Makavejev's bizarre trip down a river in Amsterdam in a ship of revelry and rebellion--a journey both literal and figural into heart of counterculture idealism--consists of a surreal series of episodes, loosely involving the strange adventures of a beauty contestant.
"Miss Monde 1984" symbolizes just about everything wrong with American capitalism (greed, possession, conversion of people into commodities) and, like the protagonist of Terry Southern's Candy, another well-known freak-out, she encounters a series of lovers and loonies who defile or enlighten her in one way or another (in the process,...
- 12/18/2009
- by underdog
- GreenCine
In Venice there is a small bridge leading over a side canal. Halfway up the steps crossing this bridge there is a landing, and a little cafe has found its perch there. In front of this cafe there is one table with two chairs. If you chose the chair with its back to the cafe, you can overlook the steps you climbed and also the steps leading toward you from the canal path, or rivetta, ahead of you. This is a quiet neighborhood crossroads, a good place to sit with a cup of cappuccino and the newspaper you got from the newsstand behind Piazza San Marco.
Of course you must have a newspaper, a book, a sketchpad--anything that seems to absorb you. If you are simply sitting there, you will appear to be a Lonely Person and people will look away from you. If you seem preoccupied, you can observe them more closely.
Of course you must have a newspaper, a book, a sketchpad--anything that seems to absorb you. If you are simply sitting there, you will appear to be a Lonely Person and people will look away from you. If you seem preoccupied, you can observe them more closely.
- 1/13/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Johansson, Lee head jury in Venice <BR clear="none"/><BR clear="none"/>
ROME -- Scarlett Johansson and Spike Lee will topline an eclectic eight-member jury at the 61st Venice Film Festival, which runs Sept. 1-11. British director John Boorman was selected president of the jury, which will choose the winners of the Golden Lion for best film along with the Volpi (Fox) Cups for best actor and actress. German director Wolfgang Becker, whose Oscar-nominated film "Good bye, Lenin!" won the Blue Angel in Berlin last year, joins Serbo-Montenegrian director Dusan Makavejev ("Man Is Not a Bird" ) on the jury. Taiwanese actress-producer Xu Feng ("Farewell My Concubine)" also was selected. Rounding out the list are a pair of Italians -- director Mimmo Calopresti ("Second Time") and Oscar-winning editor Pietro Scalia. Sicily-born Scalia won Oscars for "JFK" and for "Black Hawk Down". Calopresti is working with Steven Spielberg on a Holocaust documentary.
- 7/24/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Rough South of Larry Brown
IFP West
Los Angeles Film Festival Reviews
It's only fitting that a documentary profiling the origins and work of highly regarded Southern writer Larry Brown is as colorful and evocative as his gritty literary milieu.
Keeping the talking-heads quotient down to an intimate two -- those of the Mississippi fireman-turned-author and his supportive but pleasantly candid wife, Mary Annie -- filmmaker Gary Hawkins artfully intersperses the down-home interviews with several dramatizations of Brown's short stories.
Each has its own distinct look and flavor. While "Boy and Dog" blends a range of film stocks with archival footage to tell a story from a kid's perspective, and "Samaritans", featuring actors Will Patton and "Sling Blade"'s Natalie Canerday, sticks to Super 16mm, "Wild Thing" is told through a montage of still black-and-white images.
Although the influence of such avant-garde directors as France's Chris Marker and Yugoslavia's Dusan Makavejev is apparent here, Hawkins, whose companion film, "The Rough South of Harry Crews", won a regional Emmy, gets maximum mileage out of the technique, which, when paired with Vic Chesnutt's compositions, allows the viewer to get a fairly authentic taste of Brown's often booze-soaked prose.
Ultimately, this spirited portrait of the man and his profession has just as much to say about his relationship with the woman who has allowed the man to pursue that calling -- raising the kids while he was out haunting the bars and the lonely stretches of road -- to find the inspiration for those Southern-fried slices of life.
Los Angeles Film Festival Reviews
It's only fitting that a documentary profiling the origins and work of highly regarded Southern writer Larry Brown is as colorful and evocative as his gritty literary milieu.
Keeping the talking-heads quotient down to an intimate two -- those of the Mississippi fireman-turned-author and his supportive but pleasantly candid wife, Mary Annie -- filmmaker Gary Hawkins artfully intersperses the down-home interviews with several dramatizations of Brown's short stories.
Each has its own distinct look and flavor. While "Boy and Dog" blends a range of film stocks with archival footage to tell a story from a kid's perspective, and "Samaritans", featuring actors Will Patton and "Sling Blade"'s Natalie Canerday, sticks to Super 16mm, "Wild Thing" is told through a montage of still black-and-white images.
Although the influence of such avant-garde directors as France's Chris Marker and Yugoslavia's Dusan Makavejev is apparent here, Hawkins, whose companion film, "The Rough South of Harry Crews", won a regional Emmy, gets maximum mileage out of the technique, which, when paired with Vic Chesnutt's compositions, allows the viewer to get a fairly authentic taste of Brown's often booze-soaked prose.
Ultimately, this spirited portrait of the man and his profession has just as much to say about his relationship with the woman who has allowed the man to pursue that calling -- raising the kids while he was out haunting the bars and the lonely stretches of road -- to find the inspiration for those Southern-fried slices of life.
- 7/16/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.