Footnotes, the French whimsical musical comedy has released a new trailer and poster. The film directed by Paul Calori and Kostia Testut, and starring Pauline Etienne, Olivier Chantreau, François Morel, Loïc Corbery and Julie Victor, opens in New York on Friday, July 14th at the Village East Cinema with a national release to follow.
Foreign Language Films
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New Trailer + Poster + Images for French Musical Comedy FOOTNOTES
Footnotes, the French whimsical musical comedy has released a new trailer and poster. The film directed by Paul Calori and Kostia Testut, and starring Pauline Etienne, Olivier Chantreau, François Morel, Loïc Corbery and Julie Victor, opens in New York on Friday, July 14th at the Village East Cinema with a national release to follow.
Inspired by the films of Jacques Demy and Stanley Donen, Footnotes is a whimsical and original musical comedy about Julie, a young woman struggling to make ends meet in France’s radically changing economy. Living out of a backpack, Julie spends her days jumping from job to job until she’s finally offered a temporary stockroom position at a women’s luxury shoe factory. After making friends with the boss’s spunky receptionist Sophie and the ever-charming factory truck driver Samy, Julie thinks the hard times are behind her. But Julie’s dreams of stability collapse when management threatens to close down the factory. As her intrepid group of female colleagues get together to go on strike, Samy and the other truck drivers decide to side with the company’s scheming CEO. Julie must choose whether to keep a low profile (and a shot at permanent employment) or to resist and fight back on the picket line.
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THE FENCER, Finland’s Entry for Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Sets Release Date | Trailer
The Fencer directed by Klaus Härö – 2016 Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as Finland’s official selection and shortlist finalist at the 2016 Academy Awards (Best Foreign Language Film) will be released in the US in Summer 2017. The film will open at City Cinemas in New York on July 21 and at the Royal and Playhouse 7 in Los Angeles on August 11. A national release will follow.
A young man, Endel Nelis (Märt Avandi), arrives in Haapsalu, Estonia in the early 1950s. Having left Leningrad to escape the secret police, he finds work as a teacher and organizes a sports club for his students. Endel learns to love the children and begins to looks after them; most are orphans as a result of the Russian occupation. He starts teaching them his great passion – fencing. Fencing becomes a form of self-expression for the children and Endel is quickly seen as their role model and a father figure.
Endel’s popularity with his students causes a conflict with the school’s principal. Envious and suspicious, the principal starts investigating Endel’s background and discovers a secret from his past. When an opportunity arises for the children to participate in a national fencing tournament in Leningrad, Endel must make a choice: risk everything to take the children to Leningrad, or disappoint them by putting his safety first.
The Fencer was inspired by the true story of Endel Nelis, Estonia’s legendary fencing maestro.
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French Musical Comedy FOOTNOTES to Open in New York on July 14
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Footnotes[/caption]
The French musical comedy Footnotes directed by Paul Calori and Kostia Testut will open in New York on Friday, July 14th at the Village East Cinema with a national release to follow.
Inspired by the films of Jacques Demy and Stanley Donen,Footnotes is a whimsical and original musical comedy about Julie, a young woman struggling to make ends meet in France’s radically changing economy. Living out of a backpack, Julie spends her days jumping from job to job until she’s finally offered a temporary stockroom position at a women’s luxury shoe factory. After making friends with the boss’s spunky receptionist Sophie and the ever-charming factory truck driver Samy, Julie thinks the hard times are behind her. But Julie’s dreams of stability collapse when management threatens to close down the factory. As her intrepid group of female colleagues get together to go on strike, Samy and the other truck drivers decide to side with the company’s scheming CEO. Julie must choose whether to keep a low profile (and a shot at permanent employment) or to resist and fight back on the picket line.
Footnotes stars Pauline Etienne, Olivier Chantreau, François Morel, Loïc Corbery and Julie Victor; and was an Official Selection of Palm Springs International Film Festival, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Filmfest DC and many more.
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French Film AFTER LOVE Starring Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) Opens in NYC on August 9 | Trailer
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After Love[/caption]
The French film, After Love, (L’économie du couple) directed by Joachim Lafosse and starring Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), and Cédric Kahn will open theatrically at The Quad in NYC on Wednesday, August 9, with a national release to follow.
From the director of Our Children, Joachim Fosse, comes the story of Boris (Cédric Kahn) and Marie (Bérénice Bejo), a couple who have decided to separate after 15 years together. They have two girls that they adore, but tensions rise as cash-strapped Boris continues to live in the family home. Neither of the two is willing to compromise, making their apartment a war zone.
After Love captures with great magnitude, the painfully intimate, harrowingly drama, emotional and financial complexities of a separation, at the end of a long love story.
The film was an official selection at Directors Fortnight – Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, AFI Fest and many more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpmIYR6kmY
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French Film FALSE CONFESSIONS Starring Isabelle Huppert Sets US Release Date | Trailer
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False Confession[/caption]
False Confessions, a film directed by Luc Bondy, starring Academy Award nominee Isabelle Huppert (Elle), and Louis Garrel (Mon Roi) will open in New York on July 14 at Lincoln Plaza Cinema and at Angelika Film Centerand; at the Laemmle Royal in LA on July 21. A national release will follow.
Luc Bondy’s final feature film as director draws talent from both stage and screen to bring Marivaux’s play into 21st century Paris. Bondy staged the play and directed the movie at the same time, using the same actors for both productions.
Isabelle Huppert commands the screen as Araminte, the wealthy widow who unwittingly hires the smitten Dorante (Garrel) as her accountant. Secrets and lies accumulate as Dorante and his accomplice, Araminte’s manservant Dubois (Yves Jacques), manipulate not only the good-hearted Araminte, but also her friend and confidante, Marton (Manon Combes). Dorante, by turns pitiable and proficient, but always deferential to his social better, walks a fine line in his quest to arouse an equal desire in the object of his affections. Bulle Ogier delivers a memorable turn as Araminte’s mother, who suspects the young man’s intentions, but wants to push her daughter into the arms of an aged, hard-up Count (Jean-Pierre Malo). Filmed in part on-site at the Théâtre de l’Odéon, the film blurs the distinction between stage and screen, offering a new turn on this classic take on the psychology of love.
After Luc Bondy’s death in 2015, his wife Marie-Louise Bischofberger contributed to the completion ofFalse Confessions to achieve her late husband’s vision for the film.
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Award-Winning Argentinian Film PAULINA Will Open in NY on June 23 | Trailer
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Paulina[/caption]
Santiago Mitre’s award winning film Paulina will open Friday, June 23, 2017, at New York’s Spectacle Theater (located on 124 S 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY), before a national expansion during summer 2017.
Santiago Mitre’s (El Estudiante) Paulina is the winner of the Nespresso Grand Prix Award and the Fipresci Award at Cannes (Critics’ Week) – as well as eight Best Actress awards given to Dolores Fonzi (Truman, The Aura, Plata Quemada).
Both a remake and a “potent update” (Eye for Film) of Daniel Tinayre’s La Patota (1960), Paulina is a complex exploration of the ethics of political action and a provocative character study of a social justice activist – and her unsettling choices in the face of violence and social discrimination. Set in a racially and politically marginalized community in Argentina’s Northeast, the film tackles the moral ambiguities of those who seek to aid and ally themselves with the disadvantaged from their positions of privilege.
When the film begins, Paulina (Dolores Fonzi, in a searing performance) leaves a promising legal career in the shadow of her politically-powerful father to work as a school-teacher in a rural village, on the border with Paraguay and Brazil. Paulina speaks no Guaraní and her teenage students artfully parry her attempts to lift them into political consciousness.
These uneasy encounters, and subtly observed civics lessons, echo disturbingly in the aftermath of a violent sexual assault by a group of young men. Paulina’s decisions in its wake, portrayed without judgment by Fonzi, mercilessly test her relationships and core beliefs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws2bP9IWB1E
Awards
Grand Prize, Cannes Film Festival (Critics’ Week – 2015)
FIPRESCI Prize, Cannes Film Festival (Critics’ Week – 2015)
Horizons Award, San Sebastián Int’l Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize, Miami International Film Festival
Torino FIlm Festival – Special Jury Award
Best Actress Winner
– Dolores Fonzi –
Premio Fenix (Mexico’s Academy Awards)
Beijing International Film Festival
Premio ACE 2017
Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema
Platino Ibero-American Film Award
Argentinean Film Critics Association
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina
Torino Film Festival
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Amanda Kernell’s Award Winning Drama SAMI BLOOD (SAMEBLOD) Sets June 2 Release Date
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Sameblod – Sami Blood by Amanda Kernell[/caption]
Following premieres at TIFF, Venice, Sundance, Berlin and many others, Amanda Kernell’s striking drama SAMI BLOOD will open at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York on June 2, 2017 via Synergetic Distribution. Additional cities nationwide will open in the weeks following.
Set in 1930s Sweden during the pre-Nazi Eugenics movement, SAMI BLOOD (SAMEBLOD) follows Elle, a young indigenous Lapland girl made to feel like an inferior species when she’s subjected to indoctrination and race biology in a Swedish boarding school. Elle escapes, and in doing so is estranged from her sister, her family and her culture. The film is a unique and intimate perspective on the history of the Sami people, and tells a story of oppression that resonates across borders and generations.
SAMI BLOOD features a breakthrough performance from its young lead actress Lene Cecilia Sparrok, who has never acted before and is Sami herself. She stars in the film alongside her sister Mia Sparrok. The film is the debut feature from writer/director Amanda Kernell, who based the narrative off of her own grandmother’s life.
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Sony Pictures Classics Acquires Russian Film LOVELESS
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Loveless[/caption]
The Russian language film Loveless directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev which is set to premiere In Competition at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.
InLoveless, Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
“I am very pleased to be working with the excellent team at Sony Pictures Classics again; they were sensitive and inspired in their tremendous efforts on Leviathan, and I look forward to our new collaboration,” stated Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Said Alexander Rodnyansky “Michael Barker, Tom Bernard, and the outstanding team at SPC, are the gold standard of American distribution for our films. We are thrilled to be working with them once again.”
Sony Pictures Classics and Zvyagintsev previously worked together on Leviathan, winner of Best Screenplay at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Golden Globes and was Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Loveless also marks the third partnership between Zvyagintsev and producer Alexander Rodnyansky.
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Yoshinari Nishikori’s Award-Winning Period Action-Drama TATARA SAMURAI Sets June 2nd Release Date
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Tatara Samurai[/caption]
Following a successful film festival circuit, Eleven Arts will release Yoshinari Nishikori’s award-winning period action-drama Tatara Samurai in the U.S. The film is set to be released in theaters on June 2nd.
Tatara Samurai is the latest feature from visionary director Yoshinari Nishikori, whose films, Konshin and Railways were box office smashes in their native Japan. His latest historic epic stars Sho Aoyagi (Yakuza Apocalypse), pop star Naoki Kobayashi, Akira (Legend Of The Fist), Tomoko Tabata, and Anna Ishii.
Gosuke (Aoyagi), a young villager in Sengoku Period Japan, is trained to be a blacksmith, but forced to become a warrior. After joining the Oda Army to protect his hometown of Tatara, he begins to question whether swords are a viable defense against the new technology of firearms – but soon discovers that his skill as a blacksmith might very well be the most powerful weapon he has to protect his home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxnmlU5FAMM
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22 African Film Projects Selected for 2017 Durban FilmMart, Durban, South Africa
A record 22 fiction feature films and documentaries projects in development from around Africa have been selected for the 8th edition of the Durban FilmMart (DFM) which takes place in Durban, South Africa from July 14 to 17, 2017.
A joint program of the eThekwini Municipality’s film industry development unit, the Durban Film Office (DFO) and the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), the DFM aims to showcase and increase awareness of African cinema through stimulating film production on the continent by encouraging collaborations amongst African filmmakers.
The projects this year have been selected from across Africa, including Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Benin, DRC, Namibia, Somalia, Mozambique and South Africa.
“We are more than delighted with this year’s submissions and selection of projects,” says Toni Monty, Head of the DFO. “We have a range of countries represented as well as an interesting selection of topics and themes, which we are sure will engage and pique the interest of the visiting experts and peers. With 12 feature films and 10 documentaries, this promises to be a bumper edition and we look forward to welcoming and engaging with the film-makers on these projects in the hope that the DFM will act as a facilitator and catalyst for the further development of these films.”
“Ultimately the proof is when we see the projects come to life and get produced, distributed and screened,” Monty goes on to say. “Many of the projects selected from the DFM go on to be granted further opportunities to develop at other markets and incubators around the world. We have seen them doing well at festivals or picking up good distribution deals for cinema release. In the past we have seen many of these projects come to life and premiere at the Durban International Film Festival – a wonderful testimony to the value of the Durban FilmMart.”
The DFM provides a platform for African filmmakers, industry professionals, broadcasters and potential financiers, to come connect, network and engage in important conversations around projects. Over the years it has become an important networking space for film-makers and a solid springboard for new thinking and collaboration between African and other international film-makers.
The selected fiction and documentary film-makers will attend the DFM and will be meeting one-on-one with possible co-producers and financiers in the Finance Forum. They will also pitch their work to a panel of commissioning editors from local and international funders and financiers, and meet and network with a wide range of industry experts and possible collaborators during the four-day event.
Fiction
An African Tale (Kenya) – produced by Shirleen Wangar and directed by Gilbert Lukalia Border (Benin) – produced by Idrissou Mora Kpai and directed by Arouna Sacca Mora Kpai Borderlines (South Africa) – produced Kim Williams and Paul Egan and directed by Meg Rickards Dabulaphu (Short Cut) (South Africa) – produced Kethiwe Ngcobo and David Max Brown and directed by Norman Maake Matigari (Congo) – produced by Dilima Luzuko, Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda, Fidelis Duker, Cathy Muigai and directed by Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda Miles from Nowhere (South Africa) – produced by Bongiwe Selane and directed by Samantha Nel Rainbows Don’t Last Long (Egypt) – produced by Halina Dyrschka and directed by Mayye Zayed Richard was Here (South Africa) – produced by Akona Matyila and Jack Chiang and directed by Akona Matyila The Girl from Wereldend (Namibia) – produced by Dylan Voogt and directed by Jana Brückner The Lotus (South Africa) – produced by Bonita Sithebe and directed by Philani Sithebe The Sovereign (South Africa) – produced by Gary King, Cait Pansegrouw and Elias Ribeiro and directed by Wim Steytler The Woods (South Africa) – produced and directed by Kofi ZwaneDocumentaries
As I Want (Zay Mana Aiyza) (Egypt) – produced by Karim El Hakim and directed by Samaher Alqadi Behind Closed Doors (Morocco) – produced by Cyriac Auriol, Hind Saih, Karoline Henkel and directed by Yakhout Elhabibi Better Sundays (Kenya) – produced by Kelvin Kimathi and directed by Lydia Matata Desterrados (Mozambique) – produced by Fabio Ribeiro and directed by Yara Costa Encore (working title) (South Africa) – produced by Liesel Priem, Jolynn Minnaar and directed by Jessie Zinn and Jethro Westraad Lobola, A Bride’s True Price (South Africa) – produced by Sarah Basyouny and directed by Sihle Hlophe Rajada Dalka (Nation’s Hope) (Somalia) – produced by Andy Jones, Cynthia Kane, and Lyric R Cabraland directed by Hana Mire Softie (Kenya) – produced by Matrid Nyagah and Linda Ogeda and directed by Soko Sam Working Womxn (South Africa) – produced by Tiny Mungwe and directed by Shanelle Jewnarain Y Revolution (South Africa) – produced and directed by Suzanne du Toit
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Atlanta Jewish Film Festival Selects Series Launches with Israeli Romantic Comedy THE WEDDING PLAN
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The Wedding Plan[/caption]
The Wedding Plan, an Israeli romantic comedy about a jilted Orthodox bride who embarks on an elaborate search for Mr. Right, will screen as the first film of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival Selects series on Thursday, May 11.
The AJFF Selects series is designed to bring the same type of world-class films from the annual festival to audiences year-round. AJFF Selects will feature a series of special screening events outside of the annual festival. These programs will feature outstanding new foreign and independent films, as well as expert speakers and guest filmmakers.
Says AJFF Executive Director Kenny Blank, “With programming initiatives like the AJFF Selects, we have the opportunity to continue our conversation with the community and expand our artistic footprint all year long. We’re excited to unveil more films in the Selects series soon. This is just the beginning of new program offerings from AJFF.”
From acclaimed writer-director Rama Burshtein (Fill the Void) comes the surprisingly gentle and sweet new Israeli romantic comedy, The Wedding Plan.
After her fiancé calls off their wedding a month before the ceremony, an ultra-Orthodox woman (Noa Koler) decides to keep the wedding date, leaving it to fate to provide a suitable groom. Unwilling to return to lonely single life, Michal embarks on an exhaustive search for a spouse, enlisting different matchmakers and enduring a series of horrible blind dates. As the day of her wedding grows closer and without the presence of Mr. Right, the jilted bride-to-be puts everything on the line to find happiness.
Nominated for nine Israeli Academy Awards, The Wedding Plan is winner of Best Actress and Best Screenplay honors, and claimed Best Actress prize at the Haifa International Film Festival. A nominee for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, the film is also an Official Selection of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
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Poster + Watch the Trailer to Yiddish-Language Hit MENASHE
A24 has released the poster and trailer for the critically-acclaimed, Yiddish-language hit Menashe. The film is directed by Joshua Z. Weinstein and stars Menashe Lustig and Ruben Nyborg. Menashe opens in theaters on July 28.
Set within the New York Hasidic community in Borough Park, Brooklyn, Menashe follows a kind but hapless grocery store clerk trying to maintain custody of his son Rieven after his wife, Lea, passes away. Since they live in a tradition-bound culture that requires a mother present in every home, Rieven is supposed to be adopted by the boy’s strict, married uncle, but Menashe’s Rabbi decides to grant him one week to spend with Rieven prior to Lea’s memorial. Their time together creates an emotional moment of father/son bonding as well as offers Menashe a final chance to prove to his skeptical community that he can be a capable parent. Shot in secret entirely within the Hasidic community depicted in the film, and one of the only movies to be performed in Yiddish in nearly 70 years, Menashe is a warm, life affirming look at the universal bonds between father and son that also sheds unusual light on a notoriously private community. Based largely on the real life of its Hasidic star Menashe Lustig, the film is a strikingly authentic and deeply moving portrait of family, love, connection, and community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83UoZcdX__Y