Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight” is a surreal Mumbai fable with an aggressive comedic rhythm. It’s composed by hitting the same few notes ad nauseam, but hitting them exceptionally well and for much longer than one might expect before it eventually runs out of steam. All the while, Kandhari takes a novel visual approach to the topic of arranged marriage, situating his woebegone couple — his protagonist in particular, a woman who feels trapped — in a realm of strange psychosis. It’s better than it has any right to be, but not nearly as good as it should be.
Uma (Radhika Apte) is brash, acerbic and vulgar. Unable to cook or manage household expenses, she fulfills very few of the rigid expectations of a new Indian bride. When she arrives at her cramped new one-room apartment with her soft-spoken husband Gopal (Ashok Pathak) — an ostensible stranger — on their wedding night,...
Uma (Radhika Apte) is brash, acerbic and vulgar. Unable to cook or manage household expenses, she fulfills very few of the rigid expectations of a new Indian bride. When she arrives at her cramped new one-room apartment with her soft-spoken husband Gopal (Ashok Pathak) — an ostensible stranger — on their wedding night,...
- 5/27/2024
- by Siddhant Adlakha
- Variety Film + TV
Kodak, which had a momentous 2023 with more than 60 movies shot on film has gotten off to a promising start in 2024 with Luca Guadignino’s “Challengers” and Jane Shoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow, which A24 released wide May 17. Upcoming releases include Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” and Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu.”
Meanwhile, Kodak premiered 29 movies shot on film at Cannes. These included Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner, “Anora,” and four other contenders: Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino,” and Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour.”
Additionally, four movies were featured in Un Certain Regard, and 16 titles across Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week were captured on film. Meanwhile, 16mm film continues to prove its popularity and relevance, with 23 of the on-film titles at the festival choosing it as their capture medium.
This article was first published January 27, 2024. It has been updated.
Cannes 2024 Premieres ‘Kinds...
Meanwhile, Kodak premiered 29 movies shot on film at Cannes. These included Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner, “Anora,” and four other contenders: Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino,” and Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour.”
Additionally, four movies were featured in Un Certain Regard, and 16 titles across Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week were captured on film. Meanwhile, 16mm film continues to prove its popularity and relevance, with 23 of the on-film titles at the festival choosing it as their capture medium.
This article was first published January 27, 2024. It has been updated.
Cannes 2024 Premieres ‘Kinds...
- 5/27/2024
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Metrograph Pictures has acquired North American rights to Sandhya Suri’s Cannes standout “Santosh” following its world premiere in Un Certain Regard.
Metrograph Pictures will distribute the film theatrically, with additional release details to be announced at a later date. MK2 Films represents the movie in international markets.
“Santosh” marks the narrative feature debut of Suri, whose breakout documentary “I For India” competed at Sundance. Her short film “The Field” was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 2019, and won Best International Short at Toronto in 2018.
“Santosh” received strong reviews following its Cannes premiere, with Variety called it a “whip-smart film” that “speaks the language of a fiercely feminist empowerment saga”.
The film follows Santosh (Shahana Goswami), a recent widow who, under a government scheme, inherits her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is murdered, she...
Metrograph Pictures will distribute the film theatrically, with additional release details to be announced at a later date. MK2 Films represents the movie in international markets.
“Santosh” marks the narrative feature debut of Suri, whose breakout documentary “I For India” competed at Sundance. Her short film “The Field” was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 2019, and won Best International Short at Toronto in 2018.
“Santosh” received strong reviews following its Cannes premiere, with Variety called it a “whip-smart film” that “speaks the language of a fiercely feminist empowerment saga”.
The film follows Santosh (Shahana Goswami), a recent widow who, under a government scheme, inherits her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is murdered, she...
- 5/20/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Crazy On You: Kandhari’s Strange Fantasy of Madness
It’s been nearly twenty years since director Karan Kandhari’s 2005 debut Bye Bye Miss Goodnight (since then working on short films and music videos, including Franz Ferdinand’s “Stand on the Horizon”). He’s back with the pseudo sinister Sister Midnight, a film which partially castigates the continued tradition of arranged marriage while also moonlighting as a portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A plum role for celebrated Indian actress Radhika Apte finds the performer digging into this characterization with relish, however, the jarring tonal shifts tend to undermine her prowess.…...
It’s been nearly twenty years since director Karan Kandhari’s 2005 debut Bye Bye Miss Goodnight (since then working on short films and music videos, including Franz Ferdinand’s “Stand on the Horizon”). He’s back with the pseudo sinister Sister Midnight, a film which partially castigates the continued tradition of arranged marriage while also moonlighting as a portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A plum role for celebrated Indian actress Radhika Apte finds the performer digging into this characterization with relish, however, the jarring tonal shifts tend to undermine her prowess.…...
- 5/20/2024
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Billed the ‘Trollywood’ of the North for its close ties to talent, the leading Scandinavian regional film fund Film i Väst in Sweden’s Trollhättan has boarded the Noomi Rapace starrer “Mother, to be helmed by Macedonia’s Teona Stugar Mitevska.
The biopic, in which Rapace will play the legendary religious figure Mother Teresa, will mark the English-language debut of esteemed auteur Mitevska, credited for the 2019 Berlin entry “God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya”.
“I am Macedonian, and I grew up in Skopje- Mother Teresa’s birth place,” Mitevska told Variety. “I didn’t grow up religious, as it was Yugoslavia at the time and we were all atheist or existentialists, but I grew up in a vast family of strong dominant women, almost a matriarchy.”
The director says she got the idea for the pic while working on the docu series “Teresa and I” for Macedonian television, more than a decade ago.
The biopic, in which Rapace will play the legendary religious figure Mother Teresa, will mark the English-language debut of esteemed auteur Mitevska, credited for the 2019 Berlin entry “God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya”.
“I am Macedonian, and I grew up in Skopje- Mother Teresa’s birth place,” Mitevska told Variety. “I didn’t grow up religious, as it was Yugoslavia at the time and we were all atheist or existentialists, but I grew up in a vast family of strong dominant women, almost a matriarchy.”
The director says she got the idea for the pic while working on the docu series “Teresa and I” for Macedonian television, more than a decade ago.
- 5/18/2024
- by Annika Pham
- Variety Film + TV
Pedring Lopez’s Philippine-Singapore martial arts horror Blood Passage has been boarded for sales by the UK’s Gfm Film Sales.
The horror is set in southeast Asia, and unravels around a rescue mission gone wrong.
It is the first project of the recent co-production deal struck between Philippines’ Blackops Studios Asia and Singapore’s Very Tay Media, inked at last December’s Asia Television Forum and Market in Singapore.
Casting is underway.
Fred Hedman, partner at Gfm Film Sales and CEO of Evolution Pictures, and Christopher Shaw of the Shaw Organisation are executive producers.
Gemma Arterton to star in...
The horror is set in southeast Asia, and unravels around a rescue mission gone wrong.
It is the first project of the recent co-production deal struck between Philippines’ Blackops Studios Asia and Singapore’s Very Tay Media, inked at last December’s Asia Television Forum and Market in Singapore.
Casting is underway.
Fred Hedman, partner at Gfm Film Sales and CEO of Evolution Pictures, and Christopher Shaw of the Shaw Organisation are executive producers.
Gemma Arterton to star in...
- 5/18/2024
- ScreenDaily
Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund, is extending her contract to October 2026, after initially taking up the post for three years.
“Change takes time, film is slow to evolve,” said Bays. “The more I thought about it at the midpoint [of the contract], the more I felt there was more for me to do. The team has changed, it’s all quite recent. You need longer to do the finessing of the evolution. I can still see some gaps. It felt like the right thing, so I proposed it, and the upper echelons of the BFI agreed.”
She does not plan...
“Change takes time, film is slow to evolve,” said Bays. “The more I thought about it at the midpoint [of the contract], the more I felt there was more for me to do. The team has changed, it’s all quite recent. You need longer to do the finessing of the evolution. I can still see some gaps. It felt like the right thing, so I proposed it, and the upper echelons of the BFI agreed.”
She does not plan...
- 5/18/2024
- ScreenDaily
Production is underway in Croatia and the Czech Republic on Ungrateful Beings, the English-language debut of Czech-based Slovenian filmmaker Olmo Omerzu.
Jimmy’s Hall actor Barry Ward and Slovak-Italian star Barbora Bobulova lead the cast, alongside newcomers Dexter Franc and Antonin Chmela, and Slovenian actor Timon Sturbej, who was named a European Film Promotion Shooting Star in 2022.
Ungrateful Beings follows a family in the Czech Republic who come back from an Adriatic holiday where their 17-year-old daughter – who suffers from an eating disorder – has fallen in love with a local scoundrel. When it turns out he is a murder suspect, the...
Jimmy’s Hall actor Barry Ward and Slovak-Italian star Barbora Bobulova lead the cast, alongside newcomers Dexter Franc and Antonin Chmela, and Slovenian actor Timon Sturbej, who was named a European Film Promotion Shooting Star in 2022.
Ungrateful Beings follows a family in the Czech Republic who come back from an Adriatic holiday where their 17-year-old daughter – who suffers from an eating disorder – has fallen in love with a local scoundrel. When it turns out he is a murder suspect, the...
- 5/18/2024
- ScreenDaily
Gemma Arterton will lead the cast of After You’d Gone, a new feature from the producers of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Sister Midnight.
Arterton will play Mel, a woman whose long-term partner disappears abruptly. She discovers he had created an entire false identity; Mel’s search for truth then exposes a scandal at the heart of the UK’s Metropolitan Police.
Producers Al Clark of Wellington Films and Anna Griffin – a 2018 Screen Star of Tomorrow – of Griffin Pictures are raising production finance and taking meetings at Cannes, as well as attending the world premiere of Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight...
Arterton will play Mel, a woman whose long-term partner disappears abruptly. She discovers he had created an entire false identity; Mel’s search for truth then exposes a scandal at the heart of the UK’s Metropolitan Police.
Producers Al Clark of Wellington Films and Anna Griffin – a 2018 Screen Star of Tomorrow – of Griffin Pictures are raising production finance and taking meetings at Cannes, as well as attending the world premiere of Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight...
- 5/17/2024
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Radhika Apte (Sister Midnight), Naveen Andrews (The Dropout) and Ken Leung (Avatar: The Last Airbender) have signed on to star opposite the previously announced Sky Yang in Last Days, the next film from the Fast & Furious franchise’s Justin Lin.
Based on the Outside Magazine article The Last Days of John Allen Chau by journalist Alex Perry, this is the story of John Allen Chau, who believes he has been chosen to save the souls of the uncontacted tribe of North Sentinel Island. Designated as a protected site by the Indian government, John sets on a harrowing journey to proselytize the Sentinelese in his desperate search for identity, purpose, and belonging.
Written by Ben Ripley (Source Code), and marking Lin’s return to his indie roots, the film has just kicked off production in Thailand. In addition to directing, Lin is producing through his Perfect Storm Entertainment, overseen...
Based on the Outside Magazine article The Last Days of John Allen Chau by journalist Alex Perry, this is the story of John Allen Chau, who believes he has been chosen to save the souls of the uncontacted tribe of North Sentinel Island. Designated as a protected site by the Indian government, John sets on a harrowing journey to proselytize the Sentinelese in his desperate search for identity, purpose, and belonging.
Written by Ben Ripley (Source Code), and marking Lin’s return to his indie roots, the film has just kicked off production in Thailand. In addition to directing, Lin is producing through his Perfect Storm Entertainment, overseen...
- 5/15/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: On the heels of her acclaimed directorial debut Passing, Rebecca Hall has found her next filmmaking vehicle in Four Days Like Sunday, a mother-daughter drama inspired by her own history, which she’s written to direct and will star in for See-Saw Films.
Set in the mid 1990s, the film follows 12-year-old Jane as she begins to rebel against her role as proxy-carer for her mother Sylvia (Hall), a recently divorced and ever so slightly fading Broadway diva. During a long weekend break between concert dates, Sylvia hosts Benton, Chris and Rahim, three male dancers from her current tour, at her anachronistically grand country house. She is also expecting the arrival of Dale, her handsome younger boyfriend. As Jane does her best to protect her mother from everything that threatens to disturb her delicate equilibrium, she moves quietly from childhood into something else-wiser, freer, and more alone.
Four Days...
Set in the mid 1990s, the film follows 12-year-old Jane as she begins to rebel against her role as proxy-carer for her mother Sylvia (Hall), a recently divorced and ever so slightly fading Broadway diva. During a long weekend break between concert dates, Sylvia hosts Benton, Chris and Rahim, three male dancers from her current tour, at her anachronistically grand country house. She is also expecting the arrival of Dale, her handsome younger boyfriend. As Jane does her best to protect her mother from everything that threatens to disturb her delicate equilibrium, she moves quietly from childhood into something else-wiser, freer, and more alone.
Four Days...
- 5/8/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
UK-based sales and finance company Protagonist Pictures has lined up Simon Curtis’ Encore for international sales ahead of Cannes, starring Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Henry Winkler and Don Johnson.
UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance are handling the US sale.
Producers are Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner for Temple Hill Entertainment, the US outfit behind The Twilight Saga and The Maze Runner trilogy, which have grossed over $5.3bn and $949m worldwide respectively. Ryan Cunningham serves as co-producer. Robert Nelson Jacobs, whose credits include Chocolat, has written the script.
The comedy reunites Close and Irons 34 years after their hit Reversal Of Fortune.
UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance are handling the US sale.
Producers are Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner for Temple Hill Entertainment, the US outfit behind The Twilight Saga and The Maze Runner trilogy, which have grossed over $5.3bn and $949m worldwide respectively. Ryan Cunningham serves as co-producer. Robert Nelson Jacobs, whose credits include Chocolat, has written the script.
The comedy reunites Close and Irons 34 years after their hit Reversal Of Fortune.
- 5/2/2024
- ScreenDaily
UK sales outfit Protagonist Pictures has boarded Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Sister Midnight, from director Karan Kandhari, and unveiled a first-look still.
The Mumbai-set feature, starring Radhika Apte, has been backed by Film4 and BFI, awarding National Lottery funding, and produced by the UK’s Alastair Clark for Wellington Films, Anna Griffin for Griffin Pictures, with India’s Alan McAlex.
Sweden’s Filmgate Films and Film i Väst are co-producers and India’s Suitable Pictures are associate producers.
The black comedy follows the journey of a small-town misfit in a newly-arranged marriage who attempts to navigate an awkward spouse, nosy...
The Mumbai-set feature, starring Radhika Apte, has been backed by Film4 and BFI, awarding National Lottery funding, and produced by the UK’s Alastair Clark for Wellington Films, Anna Griffin for Griffin Pictures, with India’s Alan McAlex.
Sweden’s Filmgate Films and Film i Väst are co-producers and India’s Suitable Pictures are associate producers.
The black comedy follows the journey of a small-town misfit in a newly-arranged marriage who attempts to navigate an awkward spouse, nosy...
- 4/22/2024
- ScreenDaily
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