Porto, directed by Gabe Klinger, and starring the late Anton Yelchin along with Lucie Lucas, will be released in the US in the Fall by Kino Lorber. The film, which had its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival and US premiere at SXSW, will open at the Sunshine Cinema in New York City on November 17 and at the Nuart in Los Angeles on November 24. A national release will follow.
Jake (Anton Yelchin) and Mati (Lucie Lucas) are two expats who experience a brief but intimate connection in the ancient Portuguese city of Porto. He’s an American loner exiled from his family. She’s a student from France embroiled in an affair with one of her professors. After spotting each other from a distance at an archeological site and then again at a train station and a café, Jake works up the courage to approach Mati and they embark on a night of carefree intimacy.
This romantic encounter is viewed from years later, both characters still haunted by the powerful connection they shared. Using a mix of film stocks and art direction that evokes a bygone era of European cinema, PORTO, shot by renowned cinematographer Wyatt Garfield (Gabriel, Beatriz at Dinner, Mediterranea), delivers a cinematic form of saudade – a Portuguese word that describes an emotional state of nostalgic longing for a person or place that one has loved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3T78VfGyesFilms
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PORTO Starring Anton Yelchin Sets November Release Date | Trailer
Porto, directed by Gabe Klinger, and starring the late Anton Yelchin along with Lucie Lucas, will be released in the US in the Fall by Kino Lorber. The film, which had its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival and US premiere at SXSW, will open at the Sunshine Cinema in New York City on November 17 and at the Nuart in Los Angeles on November 24. A national release will follow.
Jake (Anton Yelchin) and Mati (Lucie Lucas) are two expats who experience a brief but intimate connection in the ancient Portuguese city of Porto. He’s an American loner exiled from his family. She’s a student from France embroiled in an affair with one of her professors. After spotting each other from a distance at an archeological site and then again at a train station and a café, Jake works up the courage to approach Mati and they embark on a night of carefree intimacy.
This romantic encounter is viewed from years later, both characters still haunted by the powerful connection they shared. Using a mix of film stocks and art direction that evokes a bygone era of European cinema, PORTO, shot by renowned cinematographer Wyatt Garfield (Gabriel, Beatriz at Dinner, Mediterranea), delivers a cinematic form of saudade – a Portuguese word that describes an emotional state of nostalgic longing for a person or place that one has loved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3T78VfGyes
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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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MANKILLER will Open and CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY will Close 2017 Rome International Film Festival
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Mankiller[/caption]
Two documentaries, Mankiller directed by Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, and Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Story will bookend the 2017 Rome International Film Festival (RIFF) taking place November 9 to 12, 2017.
To kick-off the fest, RIFF will showcase feature length documentary MANKILLER as the Opening Night Presentation on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at Rome’s historic DeSoto Theatre. From Director/Producer Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (NATURALLY NATIVE) and Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd (THE TERMINATOR, “The Walking Dead”), MANKILLER explores the legacy of the Cherokee Nation’s first woman Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller.
On Sunday, November 12, 2017 , RIFF will conclude its 2017 festivities with CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY. Directed by Phillip Baribeau, CHARGED examines the life and recovery of chef Eduardo Garcia after he was shocked with 2400 volts of electricity while hiking in Montana. CHARGED had its World Premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and has since won several awards, including an Audience Award at the Sidewalk Film Festival.
MANKILLER
DIRECTED BY VALERIE RED-HORSE MOHL
USA, 2017, ENGLISH, 74 MINUTES
In 1985, after serving as Deputy Chief under a conservative leader, Wilma Mankiller took office as the Cherokee Nation’s first woman Principal Chief. Having relocated from Oklahoma to San Francisco earlier in her life, Mankiller worked with both the nascent Black Panther and the Alcatraz occupation movements, eventually bringing the passion and experience she gained there back to her people. During her decade-long tenure as Principal Chief and beyond, Mankiller’s leadership enabled the Cherokee Nation to become one of the most economically and culturally successful tribes in America. Through rare archival footage and intimate interviews with activists including Gloria Steinem, as well as with Wilma herself, MANKILLER gives us insight into how this remarkable woman successfully navigated through the minefield of bipartisan politics. Veteran filmmaker Valerie Red-Horse Mohl and Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd present a portrait of a composed and assured leader who persevered through sexism and devastating personal setbacks to become one of the greatest leaders in American history.
CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY
DIRECTED BY PHILLIP BARIBEAU
USA, 2017, ENGLISH, 86 MINUTES
A successful chef and adventurer, Eduardo Garcia’s life was forever changed after he was shocked with 2400 volts of electricity in a backcountry freak accident while hiking in Montana. Garcia lost his left hand, ribs, muscle mass and nearly his life, but more important than what he lost was what he found. Through the caregiving and patience of his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Jane, he was nursed back to health and learned to embrace his past, his family, and his future. A love story unlike any other, CHARGED is about both a physical recovery and a life newly and fully realized.
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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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VIDEO: Watch Bill Nye on a Mission in BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY Official Trailer
Here is the trailer for Bill Nye The Science Guy, which premiered at the 2017 SXSW in March. The film will open theatrically on the Friday October 27, 2017 in New York City exclusively at Landmark Sunshine, and then expand to other markets nationwide.
Bill Nye is a man on a mission: to stop the spread of anti-scientific thinking across the world.
The former star of the popular kids show “Bill Nye The Science Guy” is now the CEO of The Planetary Society, an organization founded by Bill’s mentor Carl Sagan, where he’s launching a solar propelled spacecraft into the cosmos and advocating for the importance of science, research, and discovery in public life. With intimate and exclusive access– as well as plenty of wonder and whimsy– this behind-the-scenes portrait of Nye follows him as he takes off his Science Guy lab coat and takes on those who deny climate change, evolution, and a science-based world view. The film features Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan, and many others.