A Letter to the President directed by Roya Sadat, has been submitted by Afghanistan as its candidate for nomination in the foreign-language category of the 2018 Oscars.
Roya Sadat is the first director and producer to successfully shoot and produce films after the fall of the Talibans. “A Letter to the President” made its world premiere at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival in August and will screen at the upcoming 2017 Busan Film Festival.
In the film, Soraya is a public official struggling to enforce the law in Afghanistan today. When she decides to save a young woman accused of adultery from the justice of a clan, things spiral for the worse to the point that she’s arrested and put on death row. Asking for justice, she writes to the president, the last person who can save her. But will he listen to her plea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_txke5_nnXYForeign Language Films
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A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT is Afghanistan’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
A Letter to the President directed by Roya Sadat, has been submitted by Afghanistan as its candidate for nomination in the foreign-language category of the 2018 Oscars.
Roya Sadat is the first director and producer to successfully shoot and produce films after the fall of the Talibans. “A Letter to the President” made its world premiere at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival in August and will screen at the upcoming 2017 Busan Film Festival.
In the film, Soraya is a public official struggling to enforce the law in Afghanistan today. When she decides to save a young woman accused of adultery from the justice of a clan, things spiral for the worse to the point that she’s arrested and put on death row. Asking for justice, she writes to the president, the last person who can save her. But will he listen to her plea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_txke5_nnXY
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A CIAMBRA is Italy’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
Jonas Carpignano’s A Ciambra has been selected by Italy as the official candidate in the foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars.
The film, executive produced by Martin Scorsese, recently won the Europa Cinemas Label Award in Directors’ Fortnight at this year’s 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
In A Ciambra, a small Romani community in Calabria, Pio Amato is desperate to grow up fast. At 14, he drinks, smokes and is one of the few to easily slide between the region’s factions – the local Italians, the African refugees and his fellow Romani. Pio follows his older brother Cosimo everywhere, learning the necessary skills for life on the streets of their hometown. When Cosimo disappears and things start to go wrong, Pio sets out to prove he’s ready to step into his big brother’s shoes but soon finds himself faced with an impossible decision that will show if he is truly ready to become a man.
The film will released in theaters in the US in 2018 via Sundance Selects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1l4Hpp27A4
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EVA (YEVA) is Armenia’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
Eva (Yeva) directed by Anahid Abad, has been selected by Armenia as the country’s submission for the best foreign-language film race at the 2018 Oscars.
The Armenian-language film stars many recognized actors and actresses from Armenia, such as Narine Grigoryan, Shant Hovhannisyan, Marjan Avetisyan, Rozi Avetisyan, Sergey Tovmasyan, Vrezh Qasuni, Tigran Davtyan, Nanor Petrosyan, Evelina Adamyan, and Marat Davtyan.
The film follows Yeva, a young woman, who escapes her influential in-laws with her daughter Nareh, after her husband’s tragic death and takes refuge in one of the villages of Karabakh, Armenia. A complete stranger in the village, the woman is obliged to live her life in disguise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t8rxzDQ5o0
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ZAMA is Argentina’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
Zama directed by Lucrecia Martel has been selected by Argentina as the country’s submission in the foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscar, as well as the Spanish Goya Awards.
The decision was made by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Argentina (Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de la Argentina).
This long-awaited adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto’s 1956 classic of Latin American modernism transports us to a remote corner of 18th-century South America, where a servant of the Spanish crown slowly loses his grip on reality. Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, the Argentine auteur behind The Holy Girl and The Headless Woman, Zama is that rarest of creative feats: a perfect coupling of literary source material and cinematic sensibility. Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) leads a suspended existence as a sort of upper-tier government clerk in what is now Paraguay. He has not seen his wife and children in years. His relationships with his fellow Europeans are strained due to competition and confusion, while his interactions with the settlement’s Black and Indigenous servants are addled by desire and hostility. Zama’s entire sense of purpose is tied up in the promise that he will soon be delivered to his rightful position in faraway Buenos Aires, but the waiting seems endless. As time passes, Zama’s paranoia and capacity for violence burgeons — while his circumstances become only more precarious. TIFF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3bJeHCOwYo
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THE WOUND is South Africa’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
The Wound (“Inxeba”), directed by John Trengove, has been selected as South Africa’s submission in the foreign-language category at the 2018 Oscars.
The film explores tradition and masculinity, and the clash between age-old rituals and modernity. The Wound stars musician and novelist Nakhane Touré as Xolani, a lonely factory worker who joins the men of his community in the mountains of the Eastern Cape to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood. When Kwanda (Niza Jay Ncoyini), a defiant initiate from the city, discovers his mentor’s secret, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel.
The Wound is the first feature from writer-director John Trengove, and is co-written by Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana and Malusi Bengu. The Xhosa initiation ritual which forms the landscape of the film is also the subject of ‘Inxeba’ co-writer Mgqolozana’s novel, ‘A Man Who Is Not a Man’.
The Wound premiered at this year’s 2017 Sundance Film Festival and later opened Berlinale Panorama; and went on to win a string of awards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubSlj-G4P6I
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KHACHA is Bangladesh’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film
Khacha directed by Akram Khan has been selected as Bangladesh’s entry to represent the country in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 90th Academy Awards.
Based on author Hasan Azizul Haque’s short story Khacha, the screenplay for the film was co-written by actor Azad Abul Kalam and the film’s director Akram Khan. The film also stars Mamunur Rashid, and Jaya Ahsan; and chronicles the plight of a Hindu family trying to migrate to India after the Indian Parition of 1947.
Khacha and Shonabondhu directed by the Jahangir Alam Sumon, were the only two films submitted to the Bangladesh Oscar selection committee this year.
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ONE THOUSAND ROPES is New Zealand’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Tusi Tamasese’s One Thousand Ropes is New Zealand’s submission for the best foreign language category of the 90th Academy Awards.
Written and directed by Tamasese and produced by Catherine Fitzgerald, One Thousand Ropes is the story of a Samoan family living in suburban New Zealand, re-connecting and putting to rest the ghosts that haunt them.
Starring Uelese Petaia, Frankie Adams, Beulah Koale and Sima Urale, One Thousand Ropes is Tamasese’s follow up to his much-awarded feature debut, The Orator. The film had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the 2017 Berlin Film Festival.
One Thousand Ropes is a powerful character drama of a father reconnecting with his youngest daughter and together putting to rest the ghosts that haunt them.
She arrives vulnerable: badly beaten and heavily pregnant. He struggles on one hand, with the inner temptation and the encouragement from the men in his life to take revenge in the way he knows best, and on the other, to build the new family and companionship so desperately missing from his life.
One Thousand Ropes is a deeply moving film about connections, redemption and new beginnings.
One Thousand Ropes will next be seen in October’s London Film Festival and Adelaide Film Festivals, with more festival outings to follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWsfITbkkTc
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BIRDSHOT is Philippines’ Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
The Film Academy of the Philippines has officially selected Birdshot as the Philippine entry to the best foreign language film category of the 90th Oscar Awards.
The other films reviewed by the committee were Die Beautiful by Jun Lana; 1st SEM by Dexter Hernandez and Allan Ibanez; Ang Araw sa Likod Mo by Dominic Nuesa; Kita Kita by Sigfrid Bernardo; Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B by Prime Cruz; Patay na si Hesus by Victor Villanueva; Triptiko by Miguel Franco Micelena; and Sunday Beauty Queen by Baby Ruth Villarama.
Birdshot is directed by Mikhail Red and stars Mary Joy Apostol, Arnold Reyes, Ku Aquino and John Arcilla.
Birdshot is a coming-of-age thriller that tells the story of a young farm girl who wanders off into a Philippine forest reserve. Deep within the reservation she mistakenly shoots and kills a critically endangered and protected Philippine Eagle. As the local authorities begin a manhunt to track down the poacher of a national bird, their investigation leads them to an even more horrific discovery.
Maya, a naïve 14-year-old girl is tasked to watch over cornfields with her caretaker father Diego. Their isolated farmland is situated in the valley of the Sierra Madre in Isabela Northern Luzon. Often at conflict with her world-weary father, Maya dreams of an escape from her rural life. One day Diego entrusts Maya with his birdshot shotgun after teaching her how to hunt in the wilderness. Maya ventures on her own into the nearby protected forest, she later mistakenly shoots and kills an endangered Philippine Eagle in hopes to prove herself to her father. Upon discovering her crime, Diego decides to bury the shotgun and consume the carcass of the eagle to conceal the evidence. Later, authorities begin a manhunt to track down the eagle’s killer. Diego is ultimately apprehended as he surrenders himself to protect his daughter. Towards the end of the film Maya comes face to face with the consequences of her crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Z6ShPLtbw
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HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS is Canada’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Director François Girard’s Hochelaga, Land of Souls (Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes) will represent Canada in the race for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 90th Academy Awards.
This is François Girard’s first time representing Canada in the race for the Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the Academy Awards.
“This is a great honour that reflects on Hochelaga, Land of Souls and on all those who worked on the film, starting with my dear friend and producer Roger Frappier,” said director François Girard. “In the film, French is heard alongside Mohawk and Algonquin, the languages of the two great founding nations of our people.”
In the film, a tremendous downpour hits Montreal, and a spectacular sinkhole opens up in Percival-Molson Stadium in the middle of a football game. The stadium is evacuated, and a few hours later, it becomes a protected archaeological site. Centuries of history are revealed beneath the field. Mohawk archaeologist Baptiste Asigny begins investigating, and he will discover the multitude of generations who have occupied this land, each with buried secrets. Baptiste then sets out to find what he has spent his career searching for: the vestiges of the village of Hochelaga where his Iroquoian ancestors met French explorer Jacques Cartier in October 1535. Hochelaga, Land of Souls explores 750 years of history in one single spot where the souls of all centuries and all cultures come together.
The impressive cast includes Samian, Vincent Perez, Wahiakeron Gilbert, Raoul Trujillo, Sébastien Ricard, Siân Phillips, Linus Roache, Emmanuel Schwartz, David La Haye, Tanaya Beatty, Gilles Renaud and Naïade Aoun, to name just a few.
The film will be released theatrically in Canada in Fall 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BzSP0ztC9E
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Action Comedy KILLS ON WHEELS Sets Release Date | Trailer
In the action-comedy Kills on Wheels,, two teenaged boys living with disabilities find escape from their humdrum lives when they’re enlisted by an ex-con to be his accomplice … as wheelchair hitmen!
Thrust into a surreal world of gangsters and guns, the partnership soon blossoms into friendship as their mentor reveals a soft heart beneath his tough exterior and the boys help him come to terms with his own disability.
Kills on Wheels, written and directed by Attila Till (Panic), will open in theaters on Friday, October 20, 2017, at Village East Cinema in New York City. The film played at last year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and was Hungary’s official submission to the 89th Academy Awards®.
Kills on Wheels features stellar cinematography, a mix of live action and comic book-style animation, and a wickedly dark sense of humor. It deftly blends genres, confronting issues of invisibility, prejudice, and loneliness as it boldly flouts all stereotypes and expectations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGMUgDyD-go
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Kino Lorber to Release LET THE CORPSES TAN (Laissez bronzer les cadavres) | Trailer
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s latest film Let The Corpses Tan (Laissez bronzer les cadavres), has been acquired by Kino Lorber for release in the US, following its North American debut at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
The film stars acclaimed Romanian-American actress Elina Löwensohn (Schindler’s List, A Very Long Engagement), Stéphane Ferrara (Alexander) and Hervé Sogne (SK1, JCVD) and was photographed in cinemascope by Manuel Dacosse (Amer, Evolution, Axolotl Overkill), the directors’ longtime director of photography.
A gang of thieves absconding with 250kg of stolen gold arrives at the abode of a listless artist caught in a bohemian love triangle. The scenario quickly escalates into a desperate day-long firefight between cops and robbers throughout the remote ruins of a Mediterranean hamlet — and genre and art-house tropes collide in a relentless reverie of action spectacle, exquisitely photographed on Super 16mm film. TIFF
This eagerly anticipated follow up to Amer (2009) and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (2013) had its world premiere at the 2018 Locarno International Film Festival and a U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest, in Austin, TX.
Let The Corpses Tan will play at other upcoming fall and winter festivals before a summer 2018 theatrical release – followed by a fall SVOD, VOD and physical media launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cx48AN5_y8
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VIDEO: Watch New Trailer for Angelina Jolie’s FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER
Netflix has released a new trailer for the critically acclaimed film First They Killed My Father, directed by Angelina Jolie. The film is the adaptation of Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung’s gripping memoir of surviving the deadly Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1978.
The story is told through her eyes, from the age of five, when the Khmer Rouge came to power, to nine years old. The film depicts the indomitable spirit and devotion of Loung and her family as they struggle to stay together during the Khmer Rouge years. First They Killed My Father is now playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K_SpNqLwzI