Clockwise L to R: The First Omen (Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios), Abigail (Universal Pictures), Immaculate (Neon), Late Night With the Devil (Shudder/IFC Films)Graphic: The A.V. Club
We’ve officially reached the magical point in the year where Halloween is finally just six months away. We’re now heading downhill towards Spooky Season,...
We’ve officially reached the magical point in the year where Halloween is finally just six months away. We’re now heading downhill towards Spooky Season,...
- 4/30/2024
- by Matthew Jackson
- avclub.com
Universal’s vampire horror Abigail is aiming to take a bite out of the box office this weekend, as it opens in 545 sites in the UK and Ireland for Universal – the widest new opener of the weekend.
The film follows a kidnapping that goes outrageously awry. It shot in Ireland and is directed by US filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett – the team behind Scream and Scream VI. The cast includes Matilda The Musical’s Alisha Weir in the titular role, alongside Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens. Production companies are Project X Entertainment, Vinson Films and Radio Silence.
It’s...
The film follows a kidnapping that goes outrageously awry. It shot in Ireland and is directed by US filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett – the team behind Scream and Scream VI. The cast includes Matilda The Musical’s Alisha Weir in the titular role, alongside Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens. Production companies are Project X Entertainment, Vinson Films and Radio Silence.
It’s...
- 4/19/2024
- ScreenDaily
The story of two historians unleashing evil while recording a song is a strong idea and there are good moments and performances, but it is too chaotic and unfocused to resonate
Paul Duane is the film-maker who in 2011 made Barbaric Genius, a gripping documentary portrait of ex-convict, ex-vagrant and tournament chess player John Healy, whose memoir The Grass Arena is a classic of outsider art literature. Now Duane has given us this horror film which, though it begins with interesting subversive and satirical ideas, and an interesting allusion to Guillermo del Toro, finally becomes, for me, simply too chaotic, strained and unfocused.
Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) are social historians who travel around remote rural pubs in Ireland, recording folk ballads; they become fascinated by rumours of an old woman who lives thereabouts who can sing a thousand-year-old song, taught over generations from mother to daughter, which has...
Paul Duane is the film-maker who in 2011 made Barbaric Genius, a gripping documentary portrait of ex-convict, ex-vagrant and tournament chess player John Healy, whose memoir The Grass Arena is a classic of outsider art literature. Now Duane has given us this horror film which, though it begins with interesting subversive and satirical ideas, and an interesting allusion to Guillermo del Toro, finally becomes, for me, simply too chaotic, strained and unfocused.
Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) are social historians who travel around remote rural pubs in Ireland, recording folk ballads; they become fascinated by rumours of an old woman who lives thereabouts who can sing a thousand-year-old song, taught over generations from mother to daughter, which has...
- 4/17/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Music is one of the most mysterious natural phenomena of our world and in Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death, music becomes an ancestral force of doom and destruction. Written, directed, and produced by Paul Duane this chilling slow-burn dives headfirst into a hallucinatory world that peels back reality and opens the doors of perception to plane where entities and energies older than mankind thrive and feed on the very fabric of our being.
The importance of music, specifically Irish folk song, is immediately established. Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) travel the country, interviewing and secretly recording rare Irish folk ballads. The people they meet with are incredibly protective of these songs, and it’s as clear as day to everyone that Anna and Aleks have ulterior motives in acquiring these snippets of their culture. Like headhunting protected animals, Anna and Aleks are specifically seeking out...
The importance of music, specifically Irish folk song, is immediately established. Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) travel the country, interviewing and secretly recording rare Irish folk ballads. The people they meet with are incredibly protective of these songs, and it’s as clear as day to everyone that Anna and Aleks have ulterior motives in acquiring these snippets of their culture. Like headhunting protected animals, Anna and Aleks are specifically seeking out...
- 4/15/2024
- by Jonathan Dehaan
It’s always a big week for the genre when a horror icon slashes back into our lives, and this week marks the return of killer doll “Chucky” to the small screen. But he’s not coming alone…
Here’s all the new horror releasing April 8, 2024 – April 14, 2024!
For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.
Director Lawrence Fowler has been carving out his own little space on the indie horror scene with the Jack in the Box franchise, which began with 2019’s The Jack in the Box and continued with 2022’s The Jack in the Box: Awakening. Up next? The Jack in the Box Rises.
The brand new sequel comes to VOD and DVD Today from 4 Digital Media.
In this third installment, “When Raven is sent to an all-girls boarding school, she unleashes a demon from a mysterious vintage Jack-in-the-box hidden on the school grounds.
Here’s all the new horror releasing April 8, 2024 – April 14, 2024!
For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.
Director Lawrence Fowler has been carving out his own little space on the indie horror scene with the Jack in the Box franchise, which began with 2019’s The Jack in the Box and continued with 2022’s The Jack in the Box: Awakening. Up next? The Jack in the Box Rises.
The brand new sequel comes to VOD and DVD Today from 4 Digital Media.
In this third installment, “When Raven is sent to an all-girls boarding school, she unleashes a demon from a mysterious vintage Jack-in-the-box hidden on the school grounds.
- 4/9/2024
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
Everyone wants to be loved, but there is a fine line between a healthy, loving relationship and an unhealthy, compulsive kind of love. Some of the most beautiful, and terrifying, love stories belong to ancient Irish mythology. For instance, the tale of Clíodhna and Ciabhan tells the story of Clíodhna, Queen of the Banshees and member of a supernatural race of God-like beings, who made the mistake of falling in love with a mortal from Ireland named Ciabhan. Their forbidden romance angered the other gods, causing the God of the Sea to punish the lovers by playing an enchanting song, which hypnotized Clíodhna. Entranced, Clíodhna fell asleep and was swept away by the ocean, never to be with Ciabhan.
All You Need is Death, written and directed by Irish filmmaker Paul Duane, is a cleverly crafted story of young lovers Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) that feels like...
All You Need is Death, written and directed by Irish filmmaker Paul Duane, is a cleverly crafted story of young lovers Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) that feels like...
- 4/8/2024
- by Michelle Swope
- bloody-disgusting.com
Back in 1967, The Beatles told us, “All You Need Is Love.” Back in 2004, writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka brought the world a novel called All You Need Is Kill, which served as the basis for the 2014 Tom Cruise sci-fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow… and I could understand why the title was changed for the movie, as All You Need Is Kill never sounded quite right to me. A better version would be All You Need Is Death – and that’s the title the makers of an upcoming folk horror movie have decided to use for their film, which is set to receive a VOD and limited theatrical release on April 11th. With that release date just a couple weeks away, a trailer for All You Need Is Death has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.
The narrative feature debut from Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane, the...
The narrative feature debut from Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane, the...
- 3/26/2024
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
The feature debut of Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane, All You Need is Death, unfurls a haunting Irish folktale through ancient song.
All You Need is Death opens on VOD and in select theaters on April 11, 2024.
Watch the trailer below to get a peek at some of the folklore based horrors ahead.
The film follows “a young couple who are part of a mysterious, secret organization that travels at night with the desire to discover forbidden knowledge. They believe that living, modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find a mysterious elderly woman who sings songs that have never been heard before, they open the door to ancient evil and madness.”
Olwen Fouéré, Charlie Maher (Blue Lights), Simone Collins (The Last Duel), and Gary Whelan (The Contract) star in All You Need is Death. Olwen Fouéré is no stranger in the genre space, having previously starred in Mandy,...
All You Need is Death opens on VOD and in select theaters on April 11, 2024.
Watch the trailer below to get a peek at some of the folklore based horrors ahead.
The film follows “a young couple who are part of a mysterious, secret organization that travels at night with the desire to discover forbidden knowledge. They believe that living, modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find a mysterious elderly woman who sings songs that have never been heard before, they open the door to ancient evil and madness.”
Olwen Fouéré, Charlie Maher (Blue Lights), Simone Collins (The Last Duel), and Gary Whelan (The Contract) star in All You Need is Death. Olwen Fouéré is no stranger in the genre space, having previously starred in Mandy,...
- 3/25/2024
- by Meagan Navarro
- bloody-disgusting.com
All You Need Is Death: "A young couple who are a part of a mysterious, secret organization travel at night with the desire to discover forbidden knowledge. They believe that living, modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find an elderly, mysterious woman who sings songs that have never been heard before, they open the door to ancient evil and madness."
All You Need is Death is the feature debut from Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane and stars Olwen Fouéré, Charlie Maher, Simone Collins, and Gary Whelan.
XYZ Films will be releasing the movie on VOD and in select U.S. cinemas on April 11th.
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Mark Hamill & Rosario Dawson Join Christopher Sarandon, Horror Icon Tom Holland, And The Original Cast For A Live Reading Of “Fright Night” On The Table Read Podcast: "Table Read, an award-winning podcast, a top charter on Apple Podcasts and Realm partner,...
All You Need is Death is the feature debut from Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane and stars Olwen Fouéré, Charlie Maher, Simone Collins, and Gary Whelan.
XYZ Films will be releasing the movie on VOD and in select U.S. cinemas on April 11th.
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Mark Hamill & Rosario Dawson Join Christopher Sarandon, Horror Icon Tom Holland, And The Original Cast For A Live Reading Of “Fright Night” On The Table Read Podcast: "Table Read, an award-winning podcast, a top charter on Apple Podcasts and Realm partner,...
- 3/21/2024
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
"Not for public consumption." "Just for us to hear..." Some spook new Irish horror! XYZ Films has revealed an official trailer for a folk horror indie film titled All You Need is Death made in Ireland. This initially premiered at Beyond Fest last year, and it also played at the Cork & Sitges Film Festivals. It's opening in the US in April available on VOD to watch at home. A young couple who collect rare folk ballads discover the dark side of love when they surreptitiously record and translate an ancient, taboo folk song from the deep, forgotten past. They find an elderly, mysterious woman who sings songs that have never been heard before, though they also open the door to ancient evil and madness. All You Need is Death is the narrative feature debut from Dublin-based writer/director Paul Duane and stars Olwen Fouéré, Charlie Maher, Simone Collins, and Gary Whelan.
- 3/20/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The luck of the Irish is veering into unhinged territory thanks to Irish folklore-based horror film, “All You Need Is Death.”
The indie feature filmmaking debut from Dublin-based director Paul Duane, the film centers on a young couple (Simone Collins and Charlie Maher) who are part of a mysterious, secret organization. The duo believe that modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find an elderly, mysterious woman (Olwen Fouéré) who sings songs that have never been heard before, recording it opens the door to an ancient evil and madness.
The film had its World Premiere at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, followed by an Irish Premiere at Cork International Film Festival.
Director Duane told Film in Dublin that he was inspired by “spooky” childhood fairytales and the “weirdness of Irish ballads” to pen the original horror movie.
“One of the things that I hate about the funding model of filmmaking,...
The indie feature filmmaking debut from Dublin-based director Paul Duane, the film centers on a young couple (Simone Collins and Charlie Maher) who are part of a mysterious, secret organization. The duo believe that modern alchemy is contained in old, forgotten songs. When they find an elderly, mysterious woman (Olwen Fouéré) who sings songs that have never been heard before, recording it opens the door to an ancient evil and madness.
The film had its World Premiere at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, followed by an Irish Premiere at Cork International Film Festival.
Director Duane told Film in Dublin that he was inspired by “spooky” childhood fairytales and the “weirdness of Irish ballads” to pen the original horror movie.
“One of the things that I hate about the funding model of filmmaking,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Stars: Simone Collins, Charlie Maher, Olwen Fouéré, Barry McKiernan, Nigel O’Neill, Catherine Siggins | Written and Directed by Paul Duane
A young couple records and collects folk songs in rural Ireland, selling them to a mysterious, rich buyer. When rumours of a song never-before-heard reach the couple, they find themselves in an uneasy alliance with a music professor to discover an ancient song, a taboo ballad that may end up unlocking some dark truth from the forgotten past that will alter all their isolated lives.
Folk-horror is a term that sends shivers down my spine. And with good reason, it’s often used as a catch-all for stories that are more atmosphere than plot (by the same token I think “found footage” is often little more than an excuse for bad camerawork). And that’s certainly the case with this film – a music-centric terror tale, All You Need is Death is...
A young couple records and collects folk songs in rural Ireland, selling them to a mysterious, rich buyer. When rumours of a song never-before-heard reach the couple, they find themselves in an uneasy alliance with a music professor to discover an ancient song, a taboo ballad that may end up unlocking some dark truth from the forgotten past that will alter all their isolated lives.
Folk-horror is a term that sends shivers down my spine. And with good reason, it’s often used as a catch-all for stories that are more atmosphere than plot (by the same token I think “found footage” is often little more than an excuse for bad camerawork). And that’s certainly the case with this film – a music-centric terror tale, All You Need is Death is...
- 3/15/2024
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
If everything in the universe can ultimately be reduced to mathematics, to numbers and equations, then the process of taking those numbers and forming them into new sequences, constructing new possibilities, is found in its purest form in music. Existing at the interface of the possible and the predicted, music can be used to encode all sorts of ideas, and once it gets into our heads, it can be very hard to get out. Paul Duane’s All You Need Is Death (try saying that without getting a tune in your head) marries this idea with folk horror to impressively unsettling effect.
Screening as part of the popular Frightfest strand at the 2024 Glasgow Film Festival, the film follows young couple Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) as they travel around Ireland in search of old folk songs which might not yet have been captured for posterity. This isn’t.
Screening as part of the popular Frightfest strand at the 2024 Glasgow Film Festival, the film follows young couple Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) as they travel around Ireland in search of old folk songs which might not yet have been captured for posterity. This isn’t.
- 3/15/2024
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
All You Need Is Death Photo: Frightfest
One of the most popular phenomena at any Glasgow Film Festival is the Frightfest strand, which draws together some of the very best horror films seen by the larger Frightfest festival team. Unsurprisingly, the past few years of this have seen a strong Irish selection, with Ireland one of the countries currently dominating the international horror scene. This time around there’s Paul Duane’s All You Need Is Death, a real treat for those with an interest in folk traditions, body horror and music.
It focuses on young couple Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) as they travel around the country in search of old folk songs which might not yet have been captured for posterity. One particular song gives them more than they bargained for. It’s a ancient thing concerned with themes of jealousy and destruction, said to be cursed – and,...
One of the most popular phenomena at any Glasgow Film Festival is the Frightfest strand, which draws together some of the very best horror films seen by the larger Frightfest festival team. Unsurprisingly, the past few years of this have seen a strong Irish selection, with Ireland one of the countries currently dominating the international horror scene. This time around there’s Paul Duane’s All You Need Is Death, a real treat for those with an interest in folk traditions, body horror and music.
It focuses on young couple Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) as they travel around the country in search of old folk songs which might not yet have been captured for posterity. One particular song gives them more than they bargained for. It’s a ancient thing concerned with themes of jealousy and destruction, said to be cursed – and,...
- 3/8/2024
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Universal’s monster movie Abigail helmed by Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett has been set to world premiere as the closing night film of horror fest The Overlook Film Festival, which is taking place this year at the Prytania Theatres in New Orleans from April 4 – 7.
Slated for release on April 19, Abigail watches as a group of criminals retreats to an isolated mansion after kidnapping the ballerina daughter (Alisha Weir) of a powerful underworld figure, unaware that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl. Written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, the film’s cast also includes Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin Durand, Giancarlo Esposito, and the late Angus Cloud.
This year’s Overlook lineup includes 45 films — 22 features and 23 shorts — from 11 countries, as well as four live presentations and five immersive experiences. Set to open the fet, on the heels of its Berlin launch,...
Slated for release on April 19, Abigail watches as a group of criminals retreats to an isolated mansion after kidnapping the ballerina daughter (Alisha Weir) of a powerful underworld figure, unaware that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl. Written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, the film’s cast also includes Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin Durand, Giancarlo Esposito, and the late Angus Cloud.
This year’s Overlook lineup includes 45 films — 22 features and 23 shorts — from 11 countries, as well as four live presentations and five immersive experiences. Set to open the fet, on the heels of its Berlin launch,...
- 3/6/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
The Overlook Film Festival, billed as “the annual celebration of all things horror,” announced today the initial lineup for its 2024 edition.
Taking place April 4 through 7 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Prytania Theatres, the horror fest is ready to bring audiences back to “America’s most haunted city” with a selection of both new and classic films, including 2024 releases like Sundance smash hit “I Saw the TV Glow” from director Jane Schoenbrun, Tilman Singer’s opening night pick “Cuckoo,” closing night offering “Abigail” from the Radio Silence team, plus offscreen offerings including interactive events, live performances, immersive programming, special guests and much, much more.
“We are finally able to see the fruits of post-pandemic productions and it’s a sight to behold,” said Michael Lerman, co-founder and director of film programming of the Overlook Film Festival, in an officials statement. “This year’s lineup is full of bigger, scarier, more personal,...
Taking place April 4 through 7 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Prytania Theatres, the horror fest is ready to bring audiences back to “America’s most haunted city” with a selection of both new and classic films, including 2024 releases like Sundance smash hit “I Saw the TV Glow” from director Jane Schoenbrun, Tilman Singer’s opening night pick “Cuckoo,” closing night offering “Abigail” from the Radio Silence team, plus offscreen offerings including interactive events, live performances, immersive programming, special guests and much, much more.
“We are finally able to see the fruits of post-pandemic productions and it’s a sight to behold,” said Michael Lerman, co-founder and director of film programming of the Overlook Film Festival, in an officials statement. “This year’s lineup is full of bigger, scarier, more personal,...
- 3/6/2024
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The UK’s No.1 horror fantasy event FrightFest, which returns to Glasgow for its 19th year from Thursday 7 March to Saturday 9 March 2024, have announced the incredible line-up of talent that will grace the eagerly-anticipated event:
Schitt’s Creek and The Rig star Emily Hampshire will be hosting the World Premiere of Mom, alongside the film’s director Adam O’Brien. Emily not only stars in the film but is also Executive Producer. We will also have mega-genre talent Lauren Lavera, in the house. The star of Terrifier 2 and the forthcoming Terrifier 3, will present her latest terrifying movie, The Well, alongside Italian director Federico Zampaglione.
Abigail Hardingham will also be joining us. The star of The Missing and Nina Forever, is here for the World premiere of Custom, a passion project, which she stars in and co-produces. The film’s director, Tiago Teixeirin, making his impactful feature film debut, will also be attending,...
Schitt’s Creek and The Rig star Emily Hampshire will be hosting the World Premiere of Mom, alongside the film’s director Adam O’Brien. Emily not only stars in the film but is also Executive Producer. We will also have mega-genre talent Lauren Lavera, in the house. The star of Terrifier 2 and the forthcoming Terrifier 3, will present her latest terrifying movie, The Well, alongside Italian director Federico Zampaglione.
Abigail Hardingham will also be joining us. The star of The Missing and Nina Forever, is here for the World premiere of Custom, a passion project, which she stars in and co-produces. The film’s director, Tiago Teixeirin, making his impactful feature film debut, will also be attending,...
- 2/13/2024
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Frightfest pick The Invisible Raptor Photo: Frightfest
The line-up for this year's Glasgow Frightfest was announced this week. Opening with Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell's psychological mystery You'll Never Find Me, which sees a request for shelter on a dark and stormy night turn into something much more unsettling, it will close with Alan Scott Neal and Taylor Sardoni's tale of small town desperation, The Last Straw. Brazilian newcomer Tiago Teixeira delivers paranoid erotic in Custom and Ireland's Paul Duane explores the ethics of ethnology and the power of music in All You Need Is Death, one of the most talked-about horror films of the year to date.
Other highlights include Wake Up, an environmental slasher from Turbo Kid team Rkss, and Mike Hermosa’s joyously silly splatterfest The Invisible Raptor.
"We live in amazing times of change in the delivery of the audiovisual experience," said festival co-director Alan Jones,...
The line-up for this year's Glasgow Frightfest was announced this week. Opening with Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell's psychological mystery You'll Never Find Me, which sees a request for shelter on a dark and stormy night turn into something much more unsettling, it will close with Alan Scott Neal and Taylor Sardoni's tale of small town desperation, The Last Straw. Brazilian newcomer Tiago Teixeira delivers paranoid erotic in Custom and Ireland's Paul Duane explores the ethics of ethnology and the power of music in All You Need Is Death, one of the most talked-about horror films of the year to date.
Other highlights include Wake Up, an environmental slasher from Turbo Kid team Rkss, and Mike Hermosa’s joyously silly splatterfest The Invisible Raptor.
"We live in amazing times of change in the delivery of the audiovisual experience," said festival co-director Alan Jones,...
- 1/20/2024
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
FrightFest, the UK’s No.1 horror fantasy event, returns to the renowned Glasgow Film Festival for its 19th year, from Thursday 7th March to Saturday 9th March 2024. This year’s diverse and creative line-up, once again housed at the iconic Glasgow Film Theatre, showcases the latest new releases from the horror, chiller and fantastic realms by auteurs from all over the globe who are not only transforming the genre in exciting ways but also celebrating its consistent appeal at the box office. This year we will be presenting twelve films from eight countries, spanning three continents, including two world and eight UK premieres.
FrightFest kicks off in thrilling style on Thurs 7 March with a special UK premiere screening of twisted terror tale You’LL Never Find Me, a bold directorial debut from Australian filmmaking duo Josiah Allen & Indianna Bell and featuring outstanding central performances from Jordan Cowan & Brendan Rock.
FrightFest’s...
FrightFest kicks off in thrilling style on Thurs 7 March with a special UK premiere screening of twisted terror tale You’LL Never Find Me, a bold directorial debut from Australian filmmaking duo Josiah Allen & Indianna Bell and featuring outstanding central performances from Jordan Cowan & Brendan Rock.
FrightFest’s...
- 1/19/2024
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Horror will once again climb to terrifying new heights later this month with the 14th edition of the Telluride Horror Show! Taking place October 13th–15th in the scenic mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, this year's Telluride Horror Show lineup is brimming with must-see screenings and special events, including It's a Wonderful Knife, Late Night with the Devil, The Sacrifice Game, and Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, as well as fireside readings by authors Adam Cesare, Gabino Iglesias, and Jeremy Robert Johnson!
Below, we have the official press release with full details on the Telluride Horror Show, and to learn more and buy passes, be sure to visit the film festival's website!
Press Release: Telluride, Colorado – Telluride Horror Show has just announced the line-up for its 14th edition, October 13-15, 2023 in world-famous Telluride, Colorado.
The 2023 Telluride Horror Show will showcase a robust international slate of genre films, including 21 features and 35 shorts from 14 countries,...
Below, we have the official press release with full details on the Telluride Horror Show, and to learn more and buy passes, be sure to visit the film festival's website!
Press Release: Telluride, Colorado – Telluride Horror Show has just announced the line-up for its 14th edition, October 13-15, 2023 in world-famous Telluride, Colorado.
The 2023 Telluride Horror Show will showcase a robust international slate of genre films, including 21 features and 35 shorts from 14 countries,...
- 10/2/2023
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
The fourteenth edition of Telluride Horror Show kicks off this month, running from October 13-15, 2023 in world-famous Telluride, Colorado.
From the press release, “The 2023 Telluride Horror Show will showcase a robust international slate of genre films, including 21 features and 35 shorts from 14 countries, with highly anticipated titles including It’S A Wonderful Knife (Tyler MacIntyre), Late Night With The Devil (Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes), Suitable Flesh (Joe Lynch), The Origin (Andrew Cumming), The Sacrifice Game (Jenn Wexler), Where The Devil Roams (The Adams Family), and a special theatrical presentation of When Evil Lurks courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder. Full film line-up listed below.
“As one of the largest-capacity genre film festivals in the world, Telluride Horror Show attracts the latest and best genre films from around the globe and attendees from all over the country for an incredible gathering of horror fans in the world-famous mountain resort town of Telluride. For three packed days,...
From the press release, “The 2023 Telluride Horror Show will showcase a robust international slate of genre films, including 21 features and 35 shorts from 14 countries, with highly anticipated titles including It’S A Wonderful Knife (Tyler MacIntyre), Late Night With The Devil (Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes), Suitable Flesh (Joe Lynch), The Origin (Andrew Cumming), The Sacrifice Game (Jenn Wexler), Where The Devil Roams (The Adams Family), and a special theatrical presentation of When Evil Lurks courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder. Full film line-up listed below.
“As one of the largest-capacity genre film festivals in the world, Telluride Horror Show attracts the latest and best genre films from around the globe and attendees from all over the country for an incredible gathering of horror fans in the world-famous mountain resort town of Telluride. For three packed days,...
- 10/2/2023
- by Meagan Navarro
- bloody-disgusting.com
1185 will provide gap funding, secured against minimum guarantees, equity investment and tax break/expenditure credit cashflow.
UK post-production and VFX outfit 1185 is moving into film finance by offering financial and funding support to filmmakers using its facilities.
1185 will provide gap funding, secured against minimum guarantees, equity investment and tax break/expenditure credit cashflow to producers with whom it works.
Projects in which 1185 is involved as producer/financier include Paul Duane’s horror film All You Need Is Death, recently picked up by XYZ Films and Ray Burdis’s gangster comedy Miss The Kiss starring John Hannah and Patsy Kensit.
“It...
UK post-production and VFX outfit 1185 is moving into film finance by offering financial and funding support to filmmakers using its facilities.
1185 will provide gap funding, secured against minimum guarantees, equity investment and tax break/expenditure credit cashflow to producers with whom it works.
Projects in which 1185 is involved as producer/financier include Paul Duane’s horror film All You Need Is Death, recently picked up by XYZ Films and Ray Burdis’s gangster comedy Miss The Kiss starring John Hannah and Patsy Kensit.
“It...
- 5/23/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Renowned photographer Kourtney Roy makes feature film debut.
XYZ Films has added the psychothriller Krypto to the sales slate of its New Visions label launching in Cannes to champion bold cinematic voices and has released the first two first-looks.
Paris-based Canadian photographer Kourtney Roy makes her feature film debut on the Canadian-uk co-production about a woman’s search for a missing monster hunter and her growing realisation that she is inescapably linked to the creature being pursued. Chloe Pirrie stars and Paul Bromley wrote the screenplay.
Amber Ripley of Goodbye Productions produced Krypto alongside Sophie Venner of the UK’s Taletime Pictures and Josh Huculiak,...
XYZ Films has added the psychothriller Krypto to the sales slate of its New Visions label launching in Cannes to champion bold cinematic voices and has released the first two first-looks.
Paris-based Canadian photographer Kourtney Roy makes her feature film debut on the Canadian-uk co-production about a woman’s search for a missing monster hunter and her growing realisation that she is inescapably linked to the creature being pursued. Chloe Pirrie stars and Paul Bromley wrote the screenplay.
Amber Ripley of Goodbye Productions produced Krypto alongside Sophie Venner of the UK’s Taletime Pictures and Josh Huculiak,...
- 5/15/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Christina Hendricks will lead the psychological thriller “Reckoner,” which will be sold at the Cannes Film Festival this month.
The project is written and directed by Nissar Modi (“Z for Zacharian”), who will be making his big screen directorial debut.
In the film, an affluent woman’s carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a tightly-held secret from her past.
The film is based on a short story by late writer Rachel Ingalls and will be produced by XYZ Films and Two & Two Pictures, with XYZ Films financing. XYZ Films has also added “Reckoner” to its New Visions slate of films, with world sales launching in Cannes.
The recently launched New Visions is designed to spotlight new voices alongside established talent that are striking a new path in the international space. “Reckoner” will be the first package in pre-production to run through the new slate.
The project is written and directed by Nissar Modi (“Z for Zacharian”), who will be making his big screen directorial debut.
In the film, an affluent woman’s carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a tightly-held secret from her past.
The film is based on a short story by late writer Rachel Ingalls and will be produced by XYZ Films and Two & Two Pictures, with XYZ Films financing. XYZ Films has also added “Reckoner” to its New Visions slate of films, with world sales launching in Cannes.
The recently launched New Visions is designed to spotlight new voices alongside established talent that are striking a new path in the international space. “Reckoner” will be the first package in pre-production to run through the new slate.
- 5/2/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Mad Man star Christina Hendricks is attached to play the lead in Reckoner, an upcoming psychological thriller based on a short story by the late Rachel Ingalls.
Screenwriter Nissar Modi (Z for Zachariah) will adapt the Ingalls story and step behind the camera for his directorial debut. XYZ Films and Two & Two Pictures are producing, with XYZ preselling the project to buyers at the Cannes Film Market later this month. Reckoner will be released under XYZ’s New Visions label, a recently launched state of elevated genre films from new and up-and-coming filmmakers.
Hendricks, whose indie film credits include Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa, and Drive and The Neon Demon from Nicolas Winding Refn, will play an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is threatened by a young man with a connection to a tightly held secret from her past. Modi called it a “haunting tale of guilt,...
Screenwriter Nissar Modi (Z for Zachariah) will adapt the Ingalls story and step behind the camera for his directorial debut. XYZ Films and Two & Two Pictures are producing, with XYZ preselling the project to buyers at the Cannes Film Market later this month. Reckoner will be released under XYZ’s New Visions label, a recently launched state of elevated genre films from new and up-and-coming filmmakers.
Hendricks, whose indie film credits include Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa, and Drive and The Neon Demon from Nicolas Winding Refn, will play an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is threatened by a young man with a connection to a tightly held secret from her past. Modi called it a “haunting tale of guilt,...
- 5/2/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Psychological thriller joins In Flames, The Seeding, Restore Point, All You Need Is Death on slate of
Christina Hendricks has been cast in the lead on the psychological thriller Reckoner, which becomes the first package to join XYZ Films’ New Visions Cannes initiative championing bold global voices.
Nissar Modi, the writer on writer of Z For Zachariah, will make his feature directorial debut based on his screenplay about an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a secret from her past.
The film is based on a short story by Rachel Ingalls and...
Christina Hendricks has been cast in the lead on the psychological thriller Reckoner, which becomes the first package to join XYZ Films’ New Visions Cannes initiative championing bold global voices.
Nissar Modi, the writer on writer of Z For Zachariah, will make his feature directorial debut based on his screenplay about an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a secret from her past.
The film is based on a short story by Rachel Ingalls and...
- 5/2/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Horror will screen in Cannes market ahead of world premiere in New York in June.
XYZ Films has boarded worldwide sales on Tribeca Festival entry The Seeding for its New Visions roster and will screen the film for buyers in Cannes ahead of the world premiere in New York in June.
Barnaby Clay directed the horror about a man trapped in a desert canyon with a woman living off-grid who is captive to a pack of sadistic boys. Kate Lyn Sheil and Scott Haze star.
XYZ Films serves as executive producer and co-financier on The Seeding and its fund partner Ipr.Vc provided investment funding.
XYZ Films has boarded worldwide sales on Tribeca Festival entry The Seeding for its New Visions roster and will screen the film for buyers in Cannes ahead of the world premiere in New York in June.
Barnaby Clay directed the horror about a man trapped in a desert canyon with a woman living off-grid who is captive to a pack of sadistic boys. Kate Lyn Sheil and Scott Haze star.
XYZ Films serves as executive producer and co-financier on The Seeding and its fund partner Ipr.Vc provided investment funding.
- 4/26/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat joins company as dedicated sales executive.
Heading into Cannes XYZ Films has launched New Visions, an initiative to champion bold global voices, kicking off with Directors’ Fortnight entry In Flames.
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat has joined the company as a dedicated sales executive and will work alongside longtime head of international acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the slate.
The highly curated New Visions will discover and support the next generation of filmmakers and give established talents room to make smaller, more intimate and challenging work.
Besides Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror In Flames,...
Heading into Cannes XYZ Films has launched New Visions, an initiative to champion bold global voices, kicking off with Directors’ Fortnight entry In Flames.
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat has joined the company as a dedicated sales executive and will work alongside longtime head of international acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the slate.
The highly curated New Visions will discover and support the next generation of filmmakers and give established talents room to make smaller, more intimate and challenging work.
Besides Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror In Flames,...
- 4/19/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
XYZ Films has unveiled New Visions, an initiative designed to spotlight bold new voices alongside established talent striking a new path in the international cinema space.
The initiative will serve as a curated collection of films that “exists to discover and support the next generation of great filmmakers at the inception of their career, and to give established talents room to do something smaller, more intimate, or challenging outside of the usual box of independent filmmaking,” XYZ said in a statement.
The slate will launch in Cannes with Directors’ Fortnight selection “In Flames,” a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. As revealed by Variety, XYZ had boarded the title last year. In the Karachi-set film, after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. They must...
The initiative will serve as a curated collection of films that “exists to discover and support the next generation of great filmmakers at the inception of their career, and to give established talents room to do something smaller, more intimate, or challenging outside of the usual box of independent filmmaking,” XYZ said in a statement.
The slate will launch in Cannes with Directors’ Fortnight selection “In Flames,” a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. As revealed by Variety, XYZ had boarded the title last year. In the Karachi-set film, after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. They must...
- 4/19/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
XYZ Films have launched a new label for low-budget international genre films, called New Visions.
The company will launch its first New Visions slate at the Cannes Film Market next month with In Flames, the feature debut of Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn. The Urdu-language horror movie, which was just picked for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight lineup, follows a young woman who is tormented by vivid hallucinations after the death of her boyfriend. Other titles in the New Visions slate include the Czech science fiction title Restore Point from director Robert Hloz, and Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death from Very Extremely Dangerous helmer Paul Duane.
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, formerly a sales and marketing executive with Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment, as a dedicated sales executive overseeing the new slate, working alongside XYZ head of international acquisitions Todd Brown.
Brown framed the new label as a return to the roots for XYZ,...
The company will launch its first New Visions slate at the Cannes Film Market next month with In Flames, the feature debut of Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn. The Urdu-language horror movie, which was just picked for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight lineup, follows a young woman who is tormented by vivid hallucinations after the death of her boyfriend. Other titles in the New Visions slate include the Czech science fiction title Restore Point from director Robert Hloz, and Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death from Very Extremely Dangerous helmer Paul Duane.
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, formerly a sales and marketing executive with Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment, as a dedicated sales executive overseeing the new slate, working alongside XYZ head of international acquisitions Todd Brown.
Brown framed the new label as a return to the roots for XYZ,...
- 4/19/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, a former executive at the Spanish sales company Film Factory, to head a slate of titles that will fall under the company’s newly-launched global film initiative, New Visions.
Barat will work alongside XYZ Head of International Acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the new slate, which the company has described as a “highly curated collection of films.”
XYZ will launch the new slate in Cannes with In Flames, a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. The pic will screen as part of the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Check out a first-look image from the film below.
Other titles from the initial New Visions slate include the Czech sci-fi pic Restore Point, directed by Robert Hloz and produced by Jan Kallista, which will have footage screened at the Marché du Film as part of the Fantastic 7 lineup. Paul Duane...
Barat will work alongside XYZ Head of International Acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the new slate, which the company has described as a “highly curated collection of films.”
XYZ will launch the new slate in Cannes with In Flames, a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. The pic will screen as part of the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Check out a first-look image from the film below.
Other titles from the initial New Visions slate include the Czech sci-fi pic Restore Point, directed by Robert Hloz and produced by Jan Kallista, which will have footage screened at the Marché du Film as part of the Fantastic 7 lineup. Paul Duane...
- 4/19/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
To mark the release of Penny Slinger: Out Of The Shadows, Best Before Death, and Krabi 2562, out now, we’ve been given a bundle of all 3 releases to give away.
This latest trio of releases encompasses two documentary portraits devoted to a pair of fiercely individual British artists – Richard Kovitch’s Penny Slinger: Out Of The Shadows and Paul Duane’s Best Before Death, which follows Bill Drummond on his World Tour – and Krabi 2562, a collaboration between Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea) and Anocha Suwichakornpong (Mundane History), born out of the Thai Biennale, that occupies a fluid space between fact and fiction.
Produced in close collaboration with the filmmakers, Anti-Worlds Limited Edition Blu-rays boast high-quality presentations and are complemented by extensive bonus content – including director commentaries, interviews, short films, deleted scenes, and more – as well as exclusive booklets. By showcasing such daring and exciting work with these definitive editions,...
This latest trio of releases encompasses two documentary portraits devoted to a pair of fiercely individual British artists – Richard Kovitch’s Penny Slinger: Out Of The Shadows and Paul Duane’s Best Before Death, which follows Bill Drummond on his World Tour – and Krabi 2562, a collaboration between Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea) and Anocha Suwichakornpong (Mundane History), born out of the Thai Biennale, that occupies a fluid space between fact and fiction.
Produced in close collaboration with the filmmakers, Anti-Worlds Limited Edition Blu-rays boast high-quality presentations and are complemented by extensive bonus content – including director commentaries, interviews, short films, deleted scenes, and more – as well as exclusive booklets. By showcasing such daring and exciting work with these definitive editions,...
- 9/30/2020
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Other openers include ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ and ‘The Kitchen’.
James Gray’s astronaut drama Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt will look to hit new heights for the space genre on its first weekend in UK cinemas, released through 20th Century Fox.
The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month, launched on Wednesday in over 300 venues. It is one of a slew of recent space-themed stories, following on from Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man last year, and with Alice Winocour’s Proxima starring Eva Green and Shelagh McLeod’s Astronaut starring Richard Dreyfus to hit cinemas in the coming months.
James Gray’s astronaut drama Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt will look to hit new heights for the space genre on its first weekend in UK cinemas, released through 20th Century Fox.
The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month, launched on Wednesday in over 300 venues. It is one of a slew of recent space-themed stories, following on from Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man last year, and with Alice Winocour’s Proxima starring Eva Green and Shelagh McLeod’s Astronaut starring Richard Dreyfus to hit cinemas in the coming months.
- 9/20/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The peppery artist and musician embarks on a quest to create performance art across the globe in this engaging, sometimes hilarious documentary
Paul Duane’s intriguing and sometimes hilarious documentary is about artist and musician Bill Drummond – formerly of the pop band the Klf – who is now on what he describes as The 25 Paintings World Tour. Starting at Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham, the tour will take in 12 cities, in each of which Drummond will create and enact various performance-art pieces, including crossing a bridge banging a drum, getting a shave, baking cakes (and handing them round), shining people’s shoes and making a bed from locally sourced wood and giving that away.
It is all about the process, not the product, and in so far as all this is leading to an artwork, it is the resulting portfolio of photographs that are being taken – though Drummond is himself unsure about this part of things.
Paul Duane’s intriguing and sometimes hilarious documentary is about artist and musician Bill Drummond – formerly of the pop band the Klf – who is now on what he describes as The 25 Paintings World Tour. Starting at Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham, the tour will take in 12 cities, in each of which Drummond will create and enact various performance-art pieces, including crossing a bridge banging a drum, getting a shave, baking cakes (and handing them round), shining people’s shoes and making a bed from locally sourced wood and giving that away.
It is all about the process, not the product, and in so far as all this is leading to an artwork, it is the resulting portfolio of photographs that are being taken – though Drummond is himself unsure about this part of things.
- 9/18/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Lance Black’s Black 47 to open the event, which features seven world premieres.
Source: Iffr
‘Black 47’
The Audi Dublin International Film Festival (Feb 21- Mar 4) has announced its 2018 line-up.
Opening the 16th iteration of the event is the Irish premiere of Black 47. Lance Daly’s Great Famine-set thriller stars James Frecheville, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, Hugo Weaving and Stephen Rea.
The closing night gala is C’est La Vie, from Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano (The Intouchables).
Playwright and screenwriter Mark O’Rowe’s directing debut The Delinquent Season is one of seven world premieres. The cast includes Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle, both of whom will attend.
Other world premieres include Stacy Cochran’s Write When You Get Work and artist Alan Gilsenan’s The Meeting.
Guests at the festival include Bill Pullman, presenting his new western The Ballad of Lefty Brown; Lynne Ramsay with a special presentation of You Were Never Really Here; Nora Twomey with Oscar-nominated...
Source: Iffr
‘Black 47’
The Audi Dublin International Film Festival (Feb 21- Mar 4) has announced its 2018 line-up.
Opening the 16th iteration of the event is the Irish premiere of Black 47. Lance Daly’s Great Famine-set thriller stars James Frecheville, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, Hugo Weaving and Stephen Rea.
The closing night gala is C’est La Vie, from Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano (The Intouchables).
Playwright and screenwriter Mark O’Rowe’s directing debut The Delinquent Season is one of seven world premieres. The cast includes Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle, both of whom will attend.
Other world premieres include Stacy Cochran’s Write When You Get Work and artist Alan Gilsenan’s The Meeting.
Guests at the festival include Bill Pullman, presenting his new western The Ballad of Lefty Brown; Lynne Ramsay with a special presentation of You Were Never Really Here; Nora Twomey with Oscar-nominated...
- 1/24/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Stars: Lauryn Canny, Eva Birthistle, David Murray, Levi O’Sullivan, Justine Mitchell, David Herlihy, Declan Conlon, Emily Nagle, Stella McCusker, Shauna Griffith | Created by Rob Crawley, Paul Duane
If there is one type of television show we’ve got a lot of right now it’s the drama. While mostly concentrating on murder and politics there are some though that look to hit a much more emotional nerve by using the subject of children. Amber is one of the latest to use children as the subject using the theme of abduction.
When fourteen year old Amber Bailey disappears her family are left in turmoil. As they search for her at her friends they find she lied about visiting there and with no sign of her return it’s left to the police and pleas to the public for any news on where she could be. As the days go by...
If there is one type of television show we’ve got a lot of right now it’s the drama. While mostly concentrating on murder and politics there are some though that look to hit a much more emotional nerve by using the subject of children. Amber is one of the latest to use children as the subject using the theme of abduction.
When fourteen year old Amber Bailey disappears her family are left in turmoil. As they search for her at her friends they find she lied about visiting there and with no sign of her return it’s left to the police and pleas to the public for any news on where she could be. As the days go by...
- 7/3/2014
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
This is a reprint of an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education , L’affaire Natan, about a little known story given new life, the Dreyfus affair of French cinema. “Natan", a new documentary from Ireland by the filmmakers David Cairns and Paul Duane, sketches in the full and fascinating picture—enumerating Natan’s achievements, debunking the allegations, and reconstructing a legacy lost to malign neglect. Entitled Nazis, French Port and Film Studies: Bernard Natan’s Strange Saga, by Thomas Doherty, chair of the American-studies program at Brandeis University whose most recent book is Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 (Columbia University Press, 2013).
Nazis, French Porn, and Film Studies: Bernard Natan's Strange Saga
By Thomas Doherty
Mention Bernard Natan to even the most obsessive connoisseur of French cinema and you’re liable to get a blank stare. If recognized at all, the name might call up a vague association with sleaze and scandal. "Natan", a new documentary from Ireland by the filmmakers David Cairns and Paul Duane, sketches in the full and fascinating picture—enumerating Natan’s achievements, debunking the allegations, and reconstructing a legacy lost to malign neglect.
Natan, né Natan Tannenzapf, was a Romanian Jew who immigrated to Paris in 1905 and went on to become a titan of French film, a man whose brand name, for a time, rivaled that of Gaumont and Pathé, founding fathers of le cinéma français. At once media visionary and rapacious entrepreneur, he burned bright over the City of Lights until an arrest for fraud sent him crashing to earth. Following a sensational trial laced with xenophobia and anti-Semitism, he was sentenced to four years in the Prison de la Santé, in Paris, which is where the Nazis found him. Shipped to Auschwitz, Natan perished in 1943 and promptly vanished—or was he erased?—from historical memory.
Natan seeks to undo the second injustice. At a brisk 66 minutes, it unspools like a much shorter, cinema-centric version of Marcel Ophuls’s epic documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), the searing j’accuse that vaporized the glorious myth of consensual French resistance during the Nazi occupation. Francophilic cinephiles are sometimes afflicted with a similar case of selective amnesia, hailing the subversive frisson of Marcel Carné’sChildren of Paradise (1945) while forgetting the collaborationist filmmakers who adapted to the new regime without missing a beat. A different kind of film noir, Natan unravels the knots in three interlacing threads: the nature of history (whom do we remember and whom do we choose to forget?), the tenacity of French anti-Semitism (where the indigenous variant proves a congenial blend with the imported vintage from Germany), and (here’s where things get strange) the archival shadows of pornography flickering in film studies.
The outlines of Natan’s biography read like a Gallic version of an American rags-to-riches story featuring a colorful hustler who might have fit in well with the moguls who built an empire of their own in Hollywood. A self-made Frenchman, perhaps in nothing so much as his passion for the emerging art of the century, Natan arrived in Paris when the city was still reeling from the actualités of Auguste and Louis Lumière and the prestidigitation of Georges Méliès. Hitting the ground floor running, Natan took any gig available: lab worker and projectionist, tripod carrier and camera-cranker, and, in 1910, an outré credit—probably on a nudie film—that earned him a hefty fine and jail time for trafficking in obscene material. Still, he assimilated with a vengeance, marrying a French Catholic and enlisting in the French army during the Great War. His heroic service at the front was his passport to French citizenship; it also got the prewar bust for obscenity expunged from his record.
Mustered out, Natan assumed a prominent role in rebuilding an industry left prostrate by the Great War and plowed under by Hollywood imports. He acquired exclusive rights to film the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, built high-quality processing plants for developing and duping prints, and moved into the production of top-line features, most notably the patriotic blockbuster The Marvelous Life of Joan of Arc (1929), directed by Marco de Gastyne. Both a detail-oriented manager and a big-picture man, Natan kept a hand in all ends of the business, from the chemicals used in the labs to the interior design of the theaters.
Even before the onset of sound, in 1927, Charles Pathé had lamented that there was no more money to be made from motion pictures. Natan knew better. In 1929 he bought out Pathé—whose "crowing rooster" logo was as much an emblem of ur-Frenchness as the Eiffel Tower—and, under the name Pathé-Natan, set about consolidating his various holdings into a vertically integrated business, a streamlined system of production, distribution, and exhibition, just like the major Hollywood studios. To a remarkable extent, he succeeded—creating big-budget, must-see feature films, building a fleet of ornate theaters, and bringing technical innovations like sound and Technicolor to the French screen. Among the 70 or so feature attractions produced under his shingle are two enduring classics by the director Raymond Bernard: Wooden Crosses (1932), a grim, trench-level slog through the Great War, and Les Misérables (1934), a prestige literary adaptation that, as the documentarians Duane and Cairns cannily note, probably had a personal reverberation for Natan, with its theme of a powerful man haunted by a petty crime from his past.
So far, so business-as-usual, not unlike a TCM documentary on Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer. But then the story detours into a distinctly French quarter. In December 1938, at the height of his power, Natan was hobbled by two indictments, that he was a swindler and a Jew. He could mount a defense against only one. More-scandalous allegations were whispered—actually, in the right-wing press, shouted: that Natan’s long-ago brush with the law was no youthful indiscretion but part of a pattern of perversity. Despite his high profile and respected position, the coverage suggested, the slick foreigner was still peddling pornographic films to an underground market of like-minded lechers. The charges were straight from the playbook of the Nazi propagandists, echoing the double-barreled libels of Julius Streicher’s anti-Semitic rag Der Stürmer, where the Jew was depicted as an invasive virus sucking the life out of the body politic while defiling the purity of the native bloodline.
Unfolding from January to June 1939, trumpeted in lurid press headlines, the criminal case against Natan involved cooked books, stock manipulation, and dummy holding companies. In brief, he was accused of robbing his own company blind and cheating the stockholders. He confessed to manipulating funds—but only, he insisted, to keep his company afloat, not to bilk the stockholders. Unmoved, the court sentenced him to four years in prison. In 1940, under the Third Republic and still before the Nazi invasion, the sentence was extended to five years. The next year, a Vichy court deprived him of the French citizenship he had won during the Great War. When the Nazis requested custody of Natan (according to the French Holocaust historian Serge Klarsfeld, Natan was one of only two French Jews targeted by name, the other being Léon Blum, the former prime minister), the Vichy authorities readily complied. As the French film historian Georges Sadoul remarked, Natan’s prison cell served as the "antechamber to the oven of the crematorium."
The obvious French back story to l’affaire Natan is the case of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain whom the French military railroaded into Devil’s Island on a trumped-up charge of treason in 1895. "You might call this the Dreyfus affair of cinema," says the director and actor Frédéric Tachou. But the criminal charges against Natan are a bit harder to disentangle. In 1940, the Hollywood trade paper Variety, which had no dog in the fight, reviewed what it called "the largest scandal ever recorded in the French cinema world" and came down hard on the man in the cross hairs of the French justice system: Natan "built up a monster organization without sound financial foundation and it collapsed of its own dead weight, although it required more than 10 years to bring him to justice."
Nonetheless, a cadre of French film historians has been adamant that Natan was set up; that, despite his confession, he was no less a victim of anti-Semitic hysteria than Dreyfus. André Rossel-Kirschen, Natan’s nephew and the author of Pathé-Natan: the True History, published in France in 2004, attacked the legend of the "swindler Natan" as a smear by greedy business interests seeking to gain control of a company that was not a hollowed-out shell but a solid moneymaker—that, in fact, was always in the black. The French historian Gilles Willems, another diligent researcher in the archives of Pathé, also scorns "the tenacious legend" regarding "the Jewish swindler of Romanian descent, Bernard Natan, who acquired the great Pathé firm the better to pillage it."
For film scholars lacking a Cpa license, the labyrinthine bookkeeping trail is difficult to follow—a confirmation of the cynical Hollywood adage that the most creative people in the motion-picture business work in the studios' accounting departments. In a blog post on the making of the documentary, the filmmaker Cairns offers what seems a measured appraisal: that Natan "did more good than harm" in the annals of French cinema, and that whatever the nature of his financial malfeasance, he "was scapegoated and punished with a grotesque severity."
Ironically, after getting little more than a footnote in most chronicles of the French cinema, Franco or Anglophone, it would be the more scandalous charge that rescued Natan from his cruel fade to black. In 1993, Joseph W. Slade, a professor of media and culture at Ohio University, published an article in the Journal of Film and Video with the come-hither title "Bernard Natan: France’s Legendary Pornographer." The piece was both salacious and, as it turned out, propitious. Slade was a pioneer in what has since morphed into a full-blown subfield of cinema studies—porn studies. Jump-started by the University of California at Berkeley film professor Linda Williams’s Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible,’ published in 1989, and lent momentum by her edited collection, Porn Studies, in 2004, the close textual examination of pornography has turned from what was, not so long ago, an indictable offense into an au courant career path in the academy. Feminist critics especially have cultivated a nonprurient interest in porn, seeing in the raw footage an unfiltered lens into the male—and female—psyche, not to say physique.
Despite smirking from the mainstream press, few media scholars today would argue that a multibillion-dollar industry that has thrived since the dawn of cinema is not worthy of serious scrutiny and archival excavation. That consensus is confirmed by the steady inroads of a series of exceptionally well-attended panels at annual meetings of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and, this spring, the debut of Porn Studies, an academic journal devoted to all things triple-x. If anything, the mainstreaming of porn in media studies has lagged behind its mainstreaming on the motion-picture screen, cable, and the web.
Slade’s article certainly resurrected Natan—not as a forgotten giant of the French film industry, but rather as a priapic smut merchant. Slade charged that even as Natan was consolidating his aboveboard cinematic empire, he "unquestionably turned out some of the most historically significant hard-core footage made during the silent era." More than that, Slade contended that Natan was a featured player in many of the films, exuberantly joining in with the sadomasochism, sodomy, and bestiality. "Natan’s dapper, slightly vulpine figure, capable of stalking or mincing as the role demanded, suited the storylines," he asserted. No prude himself, Slade frankly admired the sheer épater le bourgeois of Natan’s risky moonlighting, pointing out that "as a pornographer," Natan "parodied a bland, reactionary mainstream cinema."
The French, who love a good trans-Atlantic donnybrook over cinema more than a Gitane after dinner, took to the conference-journal-and-cyberspace barricades to defend Natan’s honor. None have been more tenacious than the archivist Brigitte Berg, director of Les Documents Cinématographiques in Paris, who on the website Les indépendants du premier siècle, blasted Slade’s "poor knowledge of both the man Bernard Natan and the French cinema in general" and accused him of "slander," "fantasies," and (the mildest cut) "a rich imagination." (Unfortunately, Berg played no role in Natan, because of creative/scholarly/economic differences with the filmmakers.)
Natan resolves the fracas with a montage worth a thousand monographs: the first extended unreeling of Natan’s alleged on-screen acrobatics. Inarguably, the glimpses of proto-porno from the prewar, silent era possess redeeming archival value, from the posed nudes in nickelodeon-era stag films (pretty much the kind of mild erotica you might see on a visit to the Louvre) to the hard-core coupling, and tripling, of the 1920s and 1930s. The most shocking snippet (I have never seen anything like it and, if I had, I wouldn’t admit it) features a randy swain engaging in sexual congress with a mallard. (The French title—Le Canard—sounds far more genteel than the rhyming imperative that is its English billing.) "The ugliest film I have ever seen in my life," says the archivist Serge Bromberg. "We didn’t want to restore it."
But, of course, the best argument for restoration is that without being able to eyeball the primary source, the canard against Natan would persist. Freeze-framing and telescoping in on close-ups of the actor, the filmmakers compare the visage of the energetic star in the French porn with contemporaneous pictures of Natan, plainly showing that the men are not one and the same. The accusation always sounded unlikely—sort of as if David O. Selznick used his off time during Gone With the Wind (1939) to cavort in blue movies shot in 16mm down in the Valley. On camera, Slade now concedes that there may be reasonable doubt as to the identity of the performer and to Natan’s filmography in pornography. "I do not now believe that Natan performed in the films," he wrote me in an email, "but I do think it is likely that he was involved in their making." Although he finds Natan "somewhat maudlin," he is "delighted that Natan is at last getting the attention he deserves, attention long denied him because of the anti-Semitism that has for so long erased him from French film history."
It is odd, though, that a story that hits so many of the buttons of film scholarship—and that is this juicy—has been for so long so forgotten. "I don’t think he has been airbrushed out" of history, says the writer Bart Bull in Natan. "I think he has been deliberately destroyed." Yet it’s hard to gauge how much of the history in any field just slips down the rabbit hole of memory—like say, the story of the unheralded pioneers of American film, Harry and Roy Aitken, who produced The Birth of a Nation (1915)—and how much results from willful acts of historical erasure. However, one can see why historians of French cinema would rather remember the glory that was the cinéma français than they would the political, cultural, and business sadism, the bigotry and hypocrisy, not to mention the seediness intertwined with the triumphs in the story of Bernard Natan.
Appropriately, the most inspired sequence in Natan is also a work of restoration, though not of a pornographic film, at least not as usually defined. A newsreel clip shows Natan in the dock in 1941, at the trial that stripped him of his citizenship, a sequence that Ophuls also unspooled inThe Sorrow and the Pity. "This is not a comedy," sputters Natan, trying to hide from the cameras. "This is a tragedy." Produced by none other than Pathé Cinema, by then a tool of the Nazi occupation, the newsreel dubs in a panicky high-pitched voice for Natan, to make the outcast Jew sound like a squealing rat. Duane and Cairns correct the distortion, rewinding the clip with Natan’s real voice on the soundtrack. "You can hear his real voice in another clip used in the film where he’s telling architects what he wants in his cinemas," Duane told me in an email. "We pitch-shifted the sped-up voice in the trial newsreel until it was closer to the way he really sounded."
The gesture neatly demonstrates that if film can distort and delete history, it can also restore and repair it. "The man is dead," says the narrator at the beginning of Natan. "Even his memory has been destroyed."
No more.
Nazis, French Porn, and Film Studies: Bernard Natan's Strange Saga
By Thomas Doherty
Mention Bernard Natan to even the most obsessive connoisseur of French cinema and you’re liable to get a blank stare. If recognized at all, the name might call up a vague association with sleaze and scandal. "Natan", a new documentary from Ireland by the filmmakers David Cairns and Paul Duane, sketches in the full and fascinating picture—enumerating Natan’s achievements, debunking the allegations, and reconstructing a legacy lost to malign neglect.
Natan, né Natan Tannenzapf, was a Romanian Jew who immigrated to Paris in 1905 and went on to become a titan of French film, a man whose brand name, for a time, rivaled that of Gaumont and Pathé, founding fathers of le cinéma français. At once media visionary and rapacious entrepreneur, he burned bright over the City of Lights until an arrest for fraud sent him crashing to earth. Following a sensational trial laced with xenophobia and anti-Semitism, he was sentenced to four years in the Prison de la Santé, in Paris, which is where the Nazis found him. Shipped to Auschwitz, Natan perished in 1943 and promptly vanished—or was he erased?—from historical memory.
Natan seeks to undo the second injustice. At a brisk 66 minutes, it unspools like a much shorter, cinema-centric version of Marcel Ophuls’s epic documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), the searing j’accuse that vaporized the glorious myth of consensual French resistance during the Nazi occupation. Francophilic cinephiles are sometimes afflicted with a similar case of selective amnesia, hailing the subversive frisson of Marcel Carné’sChildren of Paradise (1945) while forgetting the collaborationist filmmakers who adapted to the new regime without missing a beat. A different kind of film noir, Natan unravels the knots in three interlacing threads: the nature of history (whom do we remember and whom do we choose to forget?), the tenacity of French anti-Semitism (where the indigenous variant proves a congenial blend with the imported vintage from Germany), and (here’s where things get strange) the archival shadows of pornography flickering in film studies.
The outlines of Natan’s biography read like a Gallic version of an American rags-to-riches story featuring a colorful hustler who might have fit in well with the moguls who built an empire of their own in Hollywood. A self-made Frenchman, perhaps in nothing so much as his passion for the emerging art of the century, Natan arrived in Paris when the city was still reeling from the actualités of Auguste and Louis Lumière and the prestidigitation of Georges Méliès. Hitting the ground floor running, Natan took any gig available: lab worker and projectionist, tripod carrier and camera-cranker, and, in 1910, an outré credit—probably on a nudie film—that earned him a hefty fine and jail time for trafficking in obscene material. Still, he assimilated with a vengeance, marrying a French Catholic and enlisting in the French army during the Great War. His heroic service at the front was his passport to French citizenship; it also got the prewar bust for obscenity expunged from his record.
Mustered out, Natan assumed a prominent role in rebuilding an industry left prostrate by the Great War and plowed under by Hollywood imports. He acquired exclusive rights to film the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, built high-quality processing plants for developing and duping prints, and moved into the production of top-line features, most notably the patriotic blockbuster The Marvelous Life of Joan of Arc (1929), directed by Marco de Gastyne. Both a detail-oriented manager and a big-picture man, Natan kept a hand in all ends of the business, from the chemicals used in the labs to the interior design of the theaters.
Even before the onset of sound, in 1927, Charles Pathé had lamented that there was no more money to be made from motion pictures. Natan knew better. In 1929 he bought out Pathé—whose "crowing rooster" logo was as much an emblem of ur-Frenchness as the Eiffel Tower—and, under the name Pathé-Natan, set about consolidating his various holdings into a vertically integrated business, a streamlined system of production, distribution, and exhibition, just like the major Hollywood studios. To a remarkable extent, he succeeded—creating big-budget, must-see feature films, building a fleet of ornate theaters, and bringing technical innovations like sound and Technicolor to the French screen. Among the 70 or so feature attractions produced under his shingle are two enduring classics by the director Raymond Bernard: Wooden Crosses (1932), a grim, trench-level slog through the Great War, and Les Misérables (1934), a prestige literary adaptation that, as the documentarians Duane and Cairns cannily note, probably had a personal reverberation for Natan, with its theme of a powerful man haunted by a petty crime from his past.
So far, so business-as-usual, not unlike a TCM documentary on Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer. But then the story detours into a distinctly French quarter. In December 1938, at the height of his power, Natan was hobbled by two indictments, that he was a swindler and a Jew. He could mount a defense against only one. More-scandalous allegations were whispered—actually, in the right-wing press, shouted: that Natan’s long-ago brush with the law was no youthful indiscretion but part of a pattern of perversity. Despite his high profile and respected position, the coverage suggested, the slick foreigner was still peddling pornographic films to an underground market of like-minded lechers. The charges were straight from the playbook of the Nazi propagandists, echoing the double-barreled libels of Julius Streicher’s anti-Semitic rag Der Stürmer, where the Jew was depicted as an invasive virus sucking the life out of the body politic while defiling the purity of the native bloodline.
Unfolding from January to June 1939, trumpeted in lurid press headlines, the criminal case against Natan involved cooked books, stock manipulation, and dummy holding companies. In brief, he was accused of robbing his own company blind and cheating the stockholders. He confessed to manipulating funds—but only, he insisted, to keep his company afloat, not to bilk the stockholders. Unmoved, the court sentenced him to four years in prison. In 1940, under the Third Republic and still before the Nazi invasion, the sentence was extended to five years. The next year, a Vichy court deprived him of the French citizenship he had won during the Great War. When the Nazis requested custody of Natan (according to the French Holocaust historian Serge Klarsfeld, Natan was one of only two French Jews targeted by name, the other being Léon Blum, the former prime minister), the Vichy authorities readily complied. As the French film historian Georges Sadoul remarked, Natan’s prison cell served as the "antechamber to the oven of the crematorium."
The obvious French back story to l’affaire Natan is the case of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain whom the French military railroaded into Devil’s Island on a trumped-up charge of treason in 1895. "You might call this the Dreyfus affair of cinema," says the director and actor Frédéric Tachou. But the criminal charges against Natan are a bit harder to disentangle. In 1940, the Hollywood trade paper Variety, which had no dog in the fight, reviewed what it called "the largest scandal ever recorded in the French cinema world" and came down hard on the man in the cross hairs of the French justice system: Natan "built up a monster organization without sound financial foundation and it collapsed of its own dead weight, although it required more than 10 years to bring him to justice."
Nonetheless, a cadre of French film historians has been adamant that Natan was set up; that, despite his confession, he was no less a victim of anti-Semitic hysteria than Dreyfus. André Rossel-Kirschen, Natan’s nephew and the author of Pathé-Natan: the True History, published in France in 2004, attacked the legend of the "swindler Natan" as a smear by greedy business interests seeking to gain control of a company that was not a hollowed-out shell but a solid moneymaker—that, in fact, was always in the black. The French historian Gilles Willems, another diligent researcher in the archives of Pathé, also scorns "the tenacious legend" regarding "the Jewish swindler of Romanian descent, Bernard Natan, who acquired the great Pathé firm the better to pillage it."
For film scholars lacking a Cpa license, the labyrinthine bookkeeping trail is difficult to follow—a confirmation of the cynical Hollywood adage that the most creative people in the motion-picture business work in the studios' accounting departments. In a blog post on the making of the documentary, the filmmaker Cairns offers what seems a measured appraisal: that Natan "did more good than harm" in the annals of French cinema, and that whatever the nature of his financial malfeasance, he "was scapegoated and punished with a grotesque severity."
Ironically, after getting little more than a footnote in most chronicles of the French cinema, Franco or Anglophone, it would be the more scandalous charge that rescued Natan from his cruel fade to black. In 1993, Joseph W. Slade, a professor of media and culture at Ohio University, published an article in the Journal of Film and Video with the come-hither title "Bernard Natan: France’s Legendary Pornographer." The piece was both salacious and, as it turned out, propitious. Slade was a pioneer in what has since morphed into a full-blown subfield of cinema studies—porn studies. Jump-started by the University of California at Berkeley film professor Linda Williams’s Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible,’ published in 1989, and lent momentum by her edited collection, Porn Studies, in 2004, the close textual examination of pornography has turned from what was, not so long ago, an indictable offense into an au courant career path in the academy. Feminist critics especially have cultivated a nonprurient interest in porn, seeing in the raw footage an unfiltered lens into the male—and female—psyche, not to say physique.
Despite smirking from the mainstream press, few media scholars today would argue that a multibillion-dollar industry that has thrived since the dawn of cinema is not worthy of serious scrutiny and archival excavation. That consensus is confirmed by the steady inroads of a series of exceptionally well-attended panels at annual meetings of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and, this spring, the debut of Porn Studies, an academic journal devoted to all things triple-x. If anything, the mainstreaming of porn in media studies has lagged behind its mainstreaming on the motion-picture screen, cable, and the web.
Slade’s article certainly resurrected Natan—not as a forgotten giant of the French film industry, but rather as a priapic smut merchant. Slade charged that even as Natan was consolidating his aboveboard cinematic empire, he "unquestionably turned out some of the most historically significant hard-core footage made during the silent era." More than that, Slade contended that Natan was a featured player in many of the films, exuberantly joining in with the sadomasochism, sodomy, and bestiality. "Natan’s dapper, slightly vulpine figure, capable of stalking or mincing as the role demanded, suited the storylines," he asserted. No prude himself, Slade frankly admired the sheer épater le bourgeois of Natan’s risky moonlighting, pointing out that "as a pornographer," Natan "parodied a bland, reactionary mainstream cinema."
The French, who love a good trans-Atlantic donnybrook over cinema more than a Gitane after dinner, took to the conference-journal-and-cyberspace barricades to defend Natan’s honor. None have been more tenacious than the archivist Brigitte Berg, director of Les Documents Cinématographiques in Paris, who on the website Les indépendants du premier siècle, blasted Slade’s "poor knowledge of both the man Bernard Natan and the French cinema in general" and accused him of "slander," "fantasies," and (the mildest cut) "a rich imagination." (Unfortunately, Berg played no role in Natan, because of creative/scholarly/economic differences with the filmmakers.)
Natan resolves the fracas with a montage worth a thousand monographs: the first extended unreeling of Natan’s alleged on-screen acrobatics. Inarguably, the glimpses of proto-porno from the prewar, silent era possess redeeming archival value, from the posed nudes in nickelodeon-era stag films (pretty much the kind of mild erotica you might see on a visit to the Louvre) to the hard-core coupling, and tripling, of the 1920s and 1930s. The most shocking snippet (I have never seen anything like it and, if I had, I wouldn’t admit it) features a randy swain engaging in sexual congress with a mallard. (The French title—Le Canard—sounds far more genteel than the rhyming imperative that is its English billing.) "The ugliest film I have ever seen in my life," says the archivist Serge Bromberg. "We didn’t want to restore it."
But, of course, the best argument for restoration is that without being able to eyeball the primary source, the canard against Natan would persist. Freeze-framing and telescoping in on close-ups of the actor, the filmmakers compare the visage of the energetic star in the French porn with contemporaneous pictures of Natan, plainly showing that the men are not one and the same. The accusation always sounded unlikely—sort of as if David O. Selznick used his off time during Gone With the Wind (1939) to cavort in blue movies shot in 16mm down in the Valley. On camera, Slade now concedes that there may be reasonable doubt as to the identity of the performer and to Natan’s filmography in pornography. "I do not now believe that Natan performed in the films," he wrote me in an email, "but I do think it is likely that he was involved in their making." Although he finds Natan "somewhat maudlin," he is "delighted that Natan is at last getting the attention he deserves, attention long denied him because of the anti-Semitism that has for so long erased him from French film history."
It is odd, though, that a story that hits so many of the buttons of film scholarship—and that is this juicy—has been for so long so forgotten. "I don’t think he has been airbrushed out" of history, says the writer Bart Bull in Natan. "I think he has been deliberately destroyed." Yet it’s hard to gauge how much of the history in any field just slips down the rabbit hole of memory—like say, the story of the unheralded pioneers of American film, Harry and Roy Aitken, who produced The Birth of a Nation (1915)—and how much results from willful acts of historical erasure. However, one can see why historians of French cinema would rather remember the glory that was the cinéma français than they would the political, cultural, and business sadism, the bigotry and hypocrisy, not to mention the seediness intertwined with the triumphs in the story of Bernard Natan.
Appropriately, the most inspired sequence in Natan is also a work of restoration, though not of a pornographic film, at least not as usually defined. A newsreel clip shows Natan in the dock in 1941, at the trial that stripped him of his citizenship, a sequence that Ophuls also unspooled inThe Sorrow and the Pity. "This is not a comedy," sputters Natan, trying to hide from the cameras. "This is a tragedy." Produced by none other than Pathé Cinema, by then a tool of the Nazi occupation, the newsreel dubs in a panicky high-pitched voice for Natan, to make the outcast Jew sound like a squealing rat. Duane and Cairns correct the distortion, rewinding the clip with Natan’s real voice on the soundtrack. "You can hear his real voice in another clip used in the film where he’s telling architects what he wants in his cinemas," Duane told me in an email. "We pitch-shifted the sped-up voice in the trial newsreel until it was closer to the way he really sounded."
The gesture neatly demonstrates that if film can distort and delete history, it can also restore and repair it. "The man is dead," says the narrator at the beginning of Natan. "Even his memory has been destroyed."
No more.
- 6/12/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The 25th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival is well underway, and on Sunday (January 5) a smattering of stars showed up for Variety’s Creative Impact Awards brunch.
Colin Farrell looked dapper as he hammed it up with director Paul Duane at Parker Palm Springs, sporting a grey suit and black tie.
Meanwhile, “Bridesmaids” babe Melissa McCarthy and her director husband Ben Falcone were all smiles as they enjoyed all the pomp and circumstance.
And Jonah Hill rubbed shoulders with festival director Darryl McDonald and writer John Lee Hancock while also defending his new flick “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Hill told press, "I don't agree with anything (the characters) did in the film. The point of the movie is that criminally these people didn't get punished for what they were doing. That doesn't mean that this kind of bad behavior and excess and treating people poorly didn't lead to a bad ending for them.
Colin Farrell looked dapper as he hammed it up with director Paul Duane at Parker Palm Springs, sporting a grey suit and black tie.
Meanwhile, “Bridesmaids” babe Melissa McCarthy and her director husband Ben Falcone were all smiles as they enjoyed all the pomp and circumstance.
And Jonah Hill rubbed shoulders with festival director Darryl McDonald and writer John Lee Hancock while also defending his new flick “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Hill told press, "I don't agree with anything (the characters) did in the film. The point of the movie is that criminally these people didn't get punished for what they were doing. That doesn't mean that this kind of bad behavior and excess and treating people poorly didn't lead to a bad ending for them.
- 1/6/2014
- GossipCenter
News.
The Best-of-the-Year lists keep rolling in, so here's a batch of worthwhile entries unveiled in the past week: Film Comment - 50 Best Films | 20 Best Undistributed Films Indiewire - Critics Survey Glenn Kenny Scott Foundas Slant Magazine Michael Sicinski's "The Best of the Rest" Village Voice Film Poll The latest issue of Cineaste is on shelves now and includes, among other pieces, an article on rom-coms today by Adrian Martin, and a feature by David Sterritt on "Beats, Beatniks, and Beat Movies." Also make sure to look online for exclusive content from Aaron Cutler and Celluloid Liberation Front. Above: one of our favorite journals, La Furia Umana, is now shipping its fourth print edition, featuring multiple pieces on Nicholas Ray and Brian De Palma. The 18th online edition is due out by the end of the month, so we'll be checking up on Lfu again soon. On digital shelves is...
The Best-of-the-Year lists keep rolling in, so here's a batch of worthwhile entries unveiled in the past week: Film Comment - 50 Best Films | 20 Best Undistributed Films Indiewire - Critics Survey Glenn Kenny Scott Foundas Slant Magazine Michael Sicinski's "The Best of the Rest" Village Voice Film Poll The latest issue of Cineaste is on shelves now and includes, among other pieces, an article on rom-coms today by Adrian Martin, and a feature by David Sterritt on "Beats, Beatniks, and Beat Movies." Also make sure to look online for exclusive content from Aaron Cutler and Celluloid Liberation Front. Above: one of our favorite journals, La Furia Umana, is now shipping its fourth print edition, featuring multiple pieces on Nicholas Ray and Brian De Palma. The 18th online edition is due out by the end of the month, so we'll be checking up on Lfu again soon. On digital shelves is...
- 12/18/2013
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Variety has chosen its 10 Directors to Watch for 2013 and believe it or not, five of the 11 directors on the list (one entry consists of a pair) are women. Could it be an encouraging sign that gender inequality in film may be on the decline? The Directors to Watch for 2013 are: Amma Asante ("Belle") Clio Barnard ("The Selfish Giant") Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo") Paul Duane ("Very Extremely Dangerous" "Natan") Ben Falcone ("Tammy") Maya Forbes ("Infinitely Polar Bear") Aron Gaudet & Gita Pullapilly ("Beneath the Harvest Sky") Dome Karukoski ("Heart of a Lion") Justin Simien ("Dear White People") Gren Wells ("The Road Within") Read More: Gender Inequality in Film in Infographic Form Variety will honor the "Directors to Watch" and recognize John Lee Hancock ("Saving Mr. Banks") with the Creative Impact in Directing award and actor Jonah Hill ("The Wolf of Wall Street") with the Creative Impact in Acting Award at a brunch on Jan.
- 12/2/2013
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
The second edition of the Transmissions ’13: A Festival of Independent Cinema organised by the Lightcube Film Society will be held in Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication, New Delhi from November 14-18, 2013.
The festival will showcase experimental films, short films, feature films and student films. The festival will also host panel discussions, video sessions, lectures, post-film discussions. Film literature, film criticism magazines, posters will also be up for sale during the festival.
Some of the films to be screened are 23 Winters by Rajesh Jala, City of Photos by Nishtha Jain, Chitrasutram by Vipin Vijay, Riyaaz by Gurvinder Singh and Ekti Naadir Naam by Anup Singh.
The pass to the festival will cost Rs 500 for general public and Rs 300 for students. Buy tickets from here. For more details call at 7838340196 or 9910161947 or write to lightcubefilmsociety@gmail.com / anuj.malhotra@lightcube.in
Schedule:
14th November 2013
4:30 Pm – 5 Pm: Opening
6:30 Pm: 23 Winters (2013)
Dir.
The festival will showcase experimental films, short films, feature films and student films. The festival will also host panel discussions, video sessions, lectures, post-film discussions. Film literature, film criticism magazines, posters will also be up for sale during the festival.
Some of the films to be screened are 23 Winters by Rajesh Jala, City of Photos by Nishtha Jain, Chitrasutram by Vipin Vijay, Riyaaz by Gurvinder Singh and Ekti Naadir Naam by Anup Singh.
The pass to the festival will cost Rs 500 for general public and Rs 300 for students. Buy tickets from here. For more details call at 7838340196 or 9910161947 or write to lightcubefilmsociety@gmail.com / anuj.malhotra@lightcube.in
Schedule:
14th November 2013
4:30 Pm – 5 Pm: Opening
6:30 Pm: 23 Winters (2013)
Dir.
- 11/11/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Captain Phillips | Enough Said | Escape Plan | Prince Avalance | The Lebanese Rocket Society | Like Father, Like Son | The Broken Circle Breakdown | Turbo | Last Passenger
Captain Phillips (12A)
(Paul Greengrass, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Michael Chernus. 134 mins
No room for Depp-like jollity aboard this pirate tale. Instead, Greengrass brings his usual reportage-style urgency to a true-life Indian Ocean hijack situation. It's tense, credible and intelligent, even if pitting four Somali fishermen against Hanks, a big ship and formidable back-up is a pretty unfair contest – that very imbalance is part of the point.
Enough Said (12A)
(Nicole Holofcener, 2013, Us) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener. 93 mins
Gandolfini's final performance elevates a polished but trifling comedy, centring on a blossoming romance poisoned by an ex-wife.
Escape Plan (15)
(Mikael Håfström, 2013, Us) Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger. 115 mins
The "geriaction" veterans join forces to punch their way out of a high-tech super-prison.
Prince Avalanche (15)
(David Gordon Green,...
Captain Phillips (12A)
(Paul Greengrass, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Michael Chernus. 134 mins
No room for Depp-like jollity aboard this pirate tale. Instead, Greengrass brings his usual reportage-style urgency to a true-life Indian Ocean hijack situation. It's tense, credible and intelligent, even if pitting four Somali fishermen against Hanks, a big ship and formidable back-up is a pretty unfair contest – that very imbalance is part of the point.
Enough Said (12A)
(Nicole Holofcener, 2013, Us) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener. 93 mins
Gandolfini's final performance elevates a polished but trifling comedy, centring on a blossoming romance poisoned by an ex-wife.
Escape Plan (15)
(Mikael Håfström, 2013, Us) Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger. 115 mins
The "geriaction" veterans join forces to punch their way out of a high-tech super-prison.
Prince Avalanche (15)
(David Gordon Green,...
- 10/19/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Musician, robber, cancer patient and all-round badass, Jerry McGill is the bizarre subject of this ambiguous documentary
Irish documentarist Paul Duane has chanced upon a properly bizarre subject: one Jerry McGill, musician, robber, cancer patient and all-round badass. In his 70s, McGill was not what he was – the gun-toting, Jaggeresque charmer who featured in William Eggleston's experimental feature Stranded in Canton, but he's still fearsome. Duane, as fascinated as a rabbit in headlights, follows McGill as he attempts to revive his music career, fend off medical treatment and negotiate fraught relationships. First seen clocking his partner Joyce in a car, McGill, it's safe to say, does not come out of this well; Duane's voice, off camera, cracks with genuine terror on more than one occasion. McGill died earlier this year ; this film will stand as his somewhat ambiguous memorial.
Rating: 2/5
DocumentaryAndrew Pulver
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
Irish documentarist Paul Duane has chanced upon a properly bizarre subject: one Jerry McGill, musician, robber, cancer patient and all-round badass. In his 70s, McGill was not what he was – the gun-toting, Jaggeresque charmer who featured in William Eggleston's experimental feature Stranded in Canton, but he's still fearsome. Duane, as fascinated as a rabbit in headlights, follows McGill as he attempts to revive his music career, fend off medical treatment and negotiate fraught relationships. First seen clocking his partner Joyce in a car, McGill, it's safe to say, does not come out of this well; Duane's voice, off camera, cracks with genuine terror on more than one occasion. McGill died earlier this year ; this film will stand as his somewhat ambiguous memorial.
Rating: 2/5
DocumentaryAndrew Pulver
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
- 10/17/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
The 6th annual Arizona Underground Film Festival might be beginning on the unluckiest day of the year — Friday the 13th — but the residents of Tucson are lucky for this 9-night extravaganza of wild and wooly cinema from all over the globe. The fest runs Sept. 13-21 at The Screening Room and other locations.
Opening Night films include the retro, music-fueled slasher flick Discopath by Renaud Gauthier and the Internet-based bloodbath Truth Or Dare, directed by scream queen Jessica Cameron making her filmmaking debut. The last film of the fest on the 21st is the cryptic post-apocalyptic thriller Dust of War, directed by Andrew Kightlinger.
The rest of the fest includes mind-bending fiction flicks like the cult-ish Fateful Findings by Neil Breen; the 90-minute, one-shot noir Worm by Andrew Bowser; Zach Clark’s twisted holiday movie White Reindeer; Drew Tobia’s surreal See You Next Tuesday; as well as challenging documentaries...
Opening Night films include the retro, music-fueled slasher flick Discopath by Renaud Gauthier and the Internet-based bloodbath Truth Or Dare, directed by scream queen Jessica Cameron making her filmmaking debut. The last film of the fest on the 21st is the cryptic post-apocalyptic thriller Dust of War, directed by Andrew Kightlinger.
The rest of the fest includes mind-bending fiction flicks like the cult-ish Fateful Findings by Neil Breen; the 90-minute, one-shot noir Worm by Andrew Bowser; Zach Clark’s twisted holiday movie White Reindeer; Drew Tobia’s surreal See You Next Tuesday; as well as challenging documentaries...
- 9/13/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 40th Telluride Film Festival takes place from August 29th to September 2nd, and those in charge have now released the full line-up. Among the big pictures taking their bow in Colorado is the world premiere of Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, an adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s novel that stars Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin.
As with many an autumn festival, Telluride hosts some of the first American screenings for many highlights from Cannes, the Venice Film Festival and others from earlier this year. Among those in the main program are Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme D’or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, Berlinale favourite Gloria from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, and Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes prize-winner The Past.
Like Tiff and the New York Film Festival, Telluride hosts showings of films from American studios often labelled ‘prestige pictures’, many of which are due for wide release later this year.
As with many an autumn festival, Telluride hosts some of the first American screenings for many highlights from Cannes, the Venice Film Festival and others from earlier this year. Among those in the main program are Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme D’or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, Berlinale favourite Gloria from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, and Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes prize-winner The Past.
Like Tiff and the New York Film Festival, Telluride hosts showings of films from American studios often labelled ‘prestige pictures’, many of which are due for wide release later this year.
- 8/28/2013
- by Josh Slater-Williams
- SoundOnSight
Apart from the three sneak screening titles that will stir up the buzz in the coming days, Julie Huntsinger and Tom Luddy’s 40th edition of the Telluride Film Festival excels in bringing a concentration of solid docus from the likes of Errol Morris and Werner Herzog who this year cuts the ribbon on a theatre going by his name and introduces Death Row, a pinch of Berlin Film Fest items (Gloria, Slow Food Story, Fifi Howls from Happiness) Palme d’Or winner (this year Abdellatif Kechiche will be celebrated), upcoming Sony Pictures Classics items (Tim’s Vermeer, The Lunchbox), Venice to Telluride to Tiff titles (Bethlehem, Tracks and Under the Skin), the latest Jason Reitman film (Labor Day) and the barely known docu-home-movie whodunit (by helmers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine) The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden which features narration from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger and Connie Nielsen.
- 8/28/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Rihanna's topless posters for her "Diamonds" world tour have offended the sensibilities of some Dublin residents, who took it upon themselves to cover her up by stapling clothes to the provocative images.
The posters feature the image from her "Unapologetic" album and depict the singer completely naked from the waist up, covered only by her elbow and the album title. She will be performing at the Aviva Stadium on June 21, and hopefully the modesty vigilantes will not be present at what is sure to be a titillating show.
Twitter user Paul Duane commented, "Somebody has stapled a dress to this Rihanna poster on Church St. Well done, you complete nutcase."
Charlene Lydon tweeted another image, captioning it, "North King Street, Dublin says a resounding No to Rihanna's boobs!"
The Diy-style cover-up is reminiscent of the reaction to H&M ads featuring a bikini-clad Beyonce in New York's Lower East Side,...
The posters feature the image from her "Unapologetic" album and depict the singer completely naked from the waist up, covered only by her elbow and the album title. She will be performing at the Aviva Stadium on June 21, and hopefully the modesty vigilantes will not be present at what is sure to be a titillating show.
Twitter user Paul Duane commented, "Somebody has stapled a dress to this Rihanna poster on Church St. Well done, you complete nutcase."
Charlene Lydon tweeted another image, captioning it, "North King Street, Dublin says a resounding No to Rihanna's boobs!"
The Diy-style cover-up is reminiscent of the reaction to H&M ads featuring a bikini-clad Beyonce in New York's Lower East Side,...
- 6/12/2013
- by Yasmine Hafiz
- Huffington Post
News.
Just in time for Kenya's national election this weekend, Mubi will be specially showing a new film, Something Necessary (Judy Kibinge, 2013), produced by Tom Tykwer, about the country's last elections, in 2007. Something Necessary premiered in January at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and will be free to watch globally on Mubi for 24 hours starting Sunday, March 3. Russian filmmaker Aleksei German has passed away at the age of 74. We've shared one of our favorite scenes of his and would like to point to a piece we published by Maxim Pozdorovkin last March, occasioned by the traveling retrospective of German's work.
We are terrifically happy for and proud of David Cairns—Notebook columnist of The Forgotten and author of the Shadowplay blog—who has just seen the premiere of his new film co-directed with Paul Duane, Natan, at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. The documentary is on Bernand Natan, a...
Just in time for Kenya's national election this weekend, Mubi will be specially showing a new film, Something Necessary (Judy Kibinge, 2013), produced by Tom Tykwer, about the country's last elections, in 2007. Something Necessary premiered in January at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and will be free to watch globally on Mubi for 24 hours starting Sunday, March 3. Russian filmmaker Aleksei German has passed away at the age of 74. We've shared one of our favorite scenes of his and would like to point to a piece we published by Maxim Pozdorovkin last March, occasioned by the traveling retrospective of German's work.
We are terrifically happy for and proud of David Cairns—Notebook columnist of The Forgotten and author of the Shadowplay blog—who has just seen the premiere of his new film co-directed with Paul Duane, Natan, at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. The documentary is on Bernand Natan, a...
- 2/28/2013
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
A very quick holiday post.
Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage is a fine festive movie, based as it is on the idea that whomsoever expires at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, will be doomed to drive the Death Coach for the following year, collecting the spirits of the dead and delivering them to their reward. Cheery stuff!
Sjöström serves up a wintry gloom and plays the lead role himself in grand style: I particularly relish a moment when he laughs in the face of a woman bent on his salvation, not in the silent movie manner of holding his sides and vibrating, but merely by baring his teeth. You can hear that dry chuckle!
In 1939, Julien Duvivier remade the film for sound, with a big budget and the best the French studios had to offer, which matched Hollywood's artifice icicle for icicle:
We track across this huge,...
Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage is a fine festive movie, based as it is on the idea that whomsoever expires at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, will be doomed to drive the Death Coach for the following year, collecting the spirits of the dead and delivering them to their reward. Cheery stuff!
Sjöström serves up a wintry gloom and plays the lead role himself in grand style: I particularly relish a moment when he laughs in the face of a woman bent on his salvation, not in the silent movie manner of holding his sides and vibrating, but merely by baring his teeth. You can hear that dry chuckle!
In 1939, Julien Duvivier remade the film for sound, with a big budget and the best the French studios had to offer, which matched Hollywood's artifice icicle for icicle:
We track across this huge,...
- 12/27/2012
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
At the end of a bumper year for film-making, Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw unveils the contenders for his very own – imaginary – film awards
Most critics compile year-end roundups in a mood of shrugging acceptance that not every year can be great. But actually 2012 has been vintage, with some really brilliant films from the biggest names doing their best work – and some fascinating documentaries. So once again, I have created my imaginary awards nominations in the following categories: best film, best director, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best documentary and best screenplay. You will have to imagine me, in full tuxedo-style evening wear announcing the Braddies at the Dorchester. (I have put Seth MacFarlane, Michael Haneke and Kylie Minogue on my table.)
So, the nominations are …
Best film
Amour (dir. Michael Haneke)
The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax)
Killing Them Softly (dir.
Most critics compile year-end roundups in a mood of shrugging acceptance that not every year can be great. But actually 2012 has been vintage, with some really brilliant films from the biggest names doing their best work – and some fascinating documentaries. So once again, I have created my imaginary awards nominations in the following categories: best film, best director, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best documentary and best screenplay. You will have to imagine me, in full tuxedo-style evening wear announcing the Braddies at the Dorchester. (I have put Seth MacFarlane, Michael Haneke and Kylie Minogue on my table.)
So, the nominations are …
Best film
Amour (dir. Michael Haneke)
The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax)
Killing Them Softly (dir.
- 12/13/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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