The Weinstein Company has released the first trailer for The Current War, in which Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) risk everything in a pitched battle to decide who will light America and usher in the new century. The film directed by Alfonso Gomez‐Rejon will open in theaters on November 24, 2017.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse, The Current War is the epic story of the cutthroat competition between the greatest inventors of the industrial age over whose electrical system would power the new century. Backed by J.P. Morgan, Edison dazzles the world by lighting Manhattan. But Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla, has seen fatal flaws in Edison’s direct current design. Igniting a war of currents, Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on risky and dangerous alternating current. Directed by Alfonso Gomez‐Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and written by playwright Michael Mitnick (Sex Lives of our Parents), The Current War also stars Katherine Waterston, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Matthew Macfadyen, and Tuppence Middleton.
Films
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Watch Benedict Cumberbatch in Electrifying First Trailer for THE CURRENT WAR
The Weinstein Company has released the first trailer for The Current War, in which Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) risk everything in a pitched battle to decide who will light America and usher in the new century. The film directed by Alfonso Gomez‐Rejon will open in theaters on November 24, 2017.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse, The Current War is the epic story of the cutthroat competition between the greatest inventors of the industrial age over whose electrical system would power the new century. Backed by J.P. Morgan, Edison dazzles the world by lighting Manhattan. But Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla, has seen fatal flaws in Edison’s direct current design. Igniting a war of currents, Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on risky and dangerous alternating current. Directed by Alfonso Gomez‐Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and written by playwright Michael Mitnick (Sex Lives of our Parents), The Current War also stars Katherine Waterston, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Matthew Macfadyen, and Tuppence Middleton.
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Showtime Releases ERIC CLAPTON: LIFE IN 12 BARS Trailer + Poster, Doc to Debut at Toronto Fest
Ahead of its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend, Showtime has released the trailer and poster for Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, directed by Oscar-winner Lili Fini Zanuck (Rush, Driving Miss Daisy).
Following the festival, the film will make its world television debut exclusively on Showtime on Saturday, February 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Also making its debut at TIFF this weekend is the new Showtime Documentary Film Love Means Zero, which presents an in-depth look at famed tennis coach Nick Bollettieri and will premiere on Showtime in 2018.
Told through his own words and songs, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars is a moving and surprising film about one of the great artists of the modern era – a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner and the only artist ever inducted three times into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Spanning more than half a century of legendary popular musical innovation, the film contextualizes Eric Clapton’s role in contemporary music and cultural history. This rare and deeply intimate film reflects on Clapton’s traumatic childhood, his long and difficult struggle with drugs and alcohol, the tragic loss of his son and how he always found his inner strength and healing in music.
The documentary features extensive interviews with Clapton himself, along with his family, friends, musical collaborators, contemporaries and heroes – including late music icons B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison. Incorporating exclusive access to Clapton’s extensive personal archive, audiences will see the sheer raw talent and ambition that was blighted by personal tragedy, sacrifice and addiction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrAvDFmE9i4
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THE FIXER is Romania’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Adrian Sitaru’s The Fixer / Fixeur has been selected by Romania to represent the country in the best foreign-language film category at the 90th Academy Awards.
The film starring Tudor Aaron Istodor, Mehdi Nebbou, Nicolas Wanczycki, Diana Spatarescu, Adrian Titieni, world premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
In The Fixer, Romanian-born Radu Patru (Tudor Istodor) is a trainee at a prestigious French news network. Serving as a translator and general problem solver, or “fixer,” for the headlining journalists during his trial period, he’s looking to make his big break. He sees his opportunity when two underage Romanian prostitutes are repatriated from France, creating an international scandal. Taking advantage of his language skills and local connections, Radu is prepared to do whatever it takes to interview one of the young girls. But as he ventures into tricky moral ground, he must stop to ask himself if, as an aspiring journalist, he can live with the consequences of his actions, and if, as a father, he’s setting a good example for his son.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTMWK6YsWY8
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AMERIKA SQUARE is Greece’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Amerika Square (Plateia Amerikis) directed by Yannis Sakaridis is Greece’s submission for the Best Foreign-language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. The film premiered last year at the Busan International Film Festival, and has won numerous awards including the FIPRESCI Prize at Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and Best Feature at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival.
Filmmaker Yannis Sakaridis presents a clever satirical view of the Greek migrant crisis by exploring both xenophobic and sympathetic sentiments of Greeks towards foreigners escaping the war and hardships that engulfed their native lands. Told from three different points of view, the story follow through to an upbeat, yet realistic and plausible ending.
Nakos is an unemployed inhabitant of the small neighborhood of Amerika Square who grows increasingly disgruntled at the influx of Middle Eastern migrants coming to Athens. Much of Nakos’ frustration stems from his inability to do anything about the new demographics of his neighborhood, a situation he spends most of his time brooding over instead of undertaking measures to address the much bigger problem at hand – his dead-end life. The pathetic Nakos has few close allies – his parents with whom he lives and childhood friend Billy, the selfless tattoo artist next door in whom Nakos confides his hatred of immigrants. What Nakos does not confide in Billy is a sinister plan to eliminate some of the migrants utilizing a desperate measure that accomplishes a chain reaction only resulting in the loss of Nakos’ few remaining friends. Billy, a lost soul himself who has wittingly and unwittingly impacted countless other lost souls through his line of work, seizes upon an opportunity to help two migrants escape from Athens; one of which a beautiful African singer with whom he falls in love and sees that she escapes to France at great cost to himself; the other a weary Syrian doctor escaping the war in Aleppo and trying desperately to reunite with his 9 year old daughter who has been smuggled to Germany ahead of him.
In the end, sympathy and selflessness resonate more brightly than intolerance and Nakos finds his anti-migrant attitude to have cost him his only allies and the shreds of pride and dignity that had been clutching all along.
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Fairy Tale Drama NOVEMBER is Estonia’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
November directed by Rainer Sarnet has been submitted by Estonia to represent the country in the best foreign-language film category at the 90th Academy Awards. Shot in black and white, the film is an adaptation of the novel “Rehepapp” by Andrus Kivirähk.
“The director’s perseverance is admirable, as is his courage in presenting this witty and weird, but also romantic and mysterious movie to the audience. It’s a pleasure to observe the role of nuanced camerawork in creating a magical universe, supported by ingenious art direction,” reads the official explanation of the selection committee. “It is also commendable that the filmmakers have chosen to cast interesting types who have had no previous acting experience.”
The selection committee praised the film’s tasteful score, that adds to the overall mystique of the film and helps to create a faceted and telling impression of a quirky nation from the North, trying to make its way through life in a bizarre connection with nature and parallel worlds; to escape the swamp of stagnant folklore to find a way to the sun, poetry and love.
November starring Rea Lest and Jörgen Liik, is an adult fairy-tale with a story taking place in a pagan Estonian village, where greedy and callous villagers are taking on the Plague, the Devil, and various demonic entities. A young peasant girl Liina is hopelessly in love with Hans, who has only eyes for the pretty young lady of the manor. Liina’s life is further complicated by her father demanding a fixed marriage to a foul-mouthed older man Endel.
November internationally premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the best cinematographer award for Mart Taniel. It was also selected to be shown in the official selection of the Karlovy Vary IFF and has been shown at numerous other festivals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6nXObRVhRc
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Award Winning ON BODY AND SOUL is Hungary’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
On Body and Soul (Testről és lélekről) directed by Ildiko Enyedi has been selected by the Hungarian Oscar Selection Committee to represent the country in the best foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars.
The film premiered at the 2017 Berlinale earlier this year, where the int’l jury headed by Paul Verhoeven awarded it the prestigious Golden Bear. On Body and Soul won the FIPRESCI Prize, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, the Berliner Morgenpost’s Reader Jury Prize in Berlin as well, and the Sydney Film Festival competition in June. Ildikó Enyedi became the first woman director to win in the 10-year history of the Sydney Film Festival competition for “courageous, audacious and cutting-edge” cinema.
Endre (Géza Morcsányi) and Maria (Alexandra Borbély) work at a slaughterhouse. He is the financial director, she the new quality inspector. By day, their urban workplace houses scenes of animals being slaughtered — and Enyedi does not shy away from the carnage. By night, they dream of the same pastoral scene in which deer rub against each other in the snow. Endre is mild-mannered, while the OCD-afflicted Maria is nervous and introverted. In everyday life, these two can’t quite connect, then a company psychiatrist realizes that they see identical images during sleep. Should these subconsciously kindred coworkers commingle in their waking hours? Or are they better off resigning themselves to being lovers only in dreams?
On Body and Soul will have its North American premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6mv_rN6bU
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Supernatural Thriller THELMA is Norway’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Thelma directed by Joachim Trier has been selected as Norway’s entry for the foreign-language category at the 2018 Oscars.
The Norwegian Oscar committee chose Trier’s fourth feature, which will have its international premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (September 7 to 17) followed by New York Film Festival (September 15 to October 28), from a shortlist of candidates, which also included Norwegian directors Izer Aliu’s Hunting Flies (Fluefangeren) and Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s The Tree Feller (Hoggeren).
The film which opened last month’s Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund and received the Norwegian Film Critics Prize, will open in the US on November 10th.
Starring Eili Harboe, Thelma portrays Thelma, a young student in Oslo. When she is drawn to another woman, she is overwhelmed by emotions she does not dare acknowledge – and frightening and inexplicable powers are forcing themselves into the open.
“Thelma confirms that Trier is a unique and style-safe film artist of a broad and international format,” explained the Norwegian Oscar committee – “based on his special and character-exploring universe, the film has become an all-embraced, ambitious and personal drama about a young woman’s awakening and detachment.
“Thelma is a film that touches the viewer on several levels, both emotionally and intellectually – it is visually striking, modern in its expression, at the same time with clear references to film classics. With this film Trier, Vogt and their regular group of assistants have delivered a story that will reach a wide audience, and which we strongly believe in as our Oscar candidate,” added chairman of the Oscar committee, managing director Sindre Guldvog, of the Norwegian Film Institute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4lHlIMNNbY
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Muslim Drama LAYLA M. is The Netherlands’ Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Layla M. directed by Mijke de Jong, has been selected as the official entry from The Netherlands for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
The film tells the controversial and searingly honest story of a young female Islamist. Layla, a Dutch-Moroccan teenager, is radicalized by her adopted country’s anti-Muslim measures. She marries a devout young jihadist and together they leave Amsterdam to join an Islamist cell in the Middle East – only to discover that her new community has its own restrictions, prejudices and dangers.
Layla M. starring Nora el Koussour (Laila), Ilias Addab (Abdel), Yasemin Cetinkaya (Oum Osama), Hassan Akkouch (Zine), Husam Khadad (Sheikh Abdullah Al Sabin), Ayisha Siddiqi (Mereyem) Bilal Wahib (Younes) Bobbie Koek (Hana) Mohammed Azaay (Father) and Esma Abouzahra (Mother), world premiered in the Platform competition of the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
Layla M. (18) is a young Muslim born in Holland.
Their Moroccan parents had already emigrated to Amsterdam before their birth, and there lay Layla and her brother Younes liberal large.
Layla is an intelligent, funny and stubborn girl with a strong sense of justice. Through the daily confrontation with prejudices against Muslims and Islam, Layla feels increasingly less affable and incomprehensible. Her parents do not try to attract attention and do not help her. Whether on the road, in school, or in politics; the reservations about headscarf-wearing women and men with raucous beards are almost omnipresent in Layla’s world, against the background of various Islamic terror attacks.
Their faith gives Layla a hold and is only strengthened by her displeasure and her longing for affiliation. It is slowly, but surely, joining a group of radical Muslims to create a world in which Islam is tolerated and accepted; and can be lived freely.
Layla is increasingly in conflict with her environment, her family, and even her best friend, Mereyem. Her father, a parade example of an “assimilated alien,” tries to keep his children in check, but Layla refuses to live as he does: as a guest in his own country.
The radical group becomes their new family. Including Abdel, a charismatic believing Muslim, who impressed Layla with his strong speeches.
As Layla’s relationship with her family grows, she feels that your only option is to go away from home. True to her belief, Layla decides to marry Abdel.
After her wedding, Layla goes to the Middle East with Abdel.
Layla meets a world that nourishes their ideas and needs, but ultimately puts them before a seemingly impossible choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esGsns05lI0
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Kino Lorber to Release FILMWORKER and HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD from Telluride 2017
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Filmworker[/caption]
Tony Zierra’s Filmworker and Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood, two documentaries that had their North American premieres at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by Kino Lorber for release in the North America in 2018.
Zierra’s homage to Kubrick’s right-hand man had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and will also show at the upcoming New York Film Festival, while Suchsland’s follow-up to his 2014 film From Caligari to Hitler will premiere at New York’s Film Forum next April.
Filmworker is focused on the work and life of Leon Vitali, the actor who played Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and subsequently abandoned his acting career to become Kubrick’s dedicated assistant. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes, helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work. The complex, interdependent relationship between Vitali and Kubrick was founded on devotion, sacrifice and the grueling, joyful reality of the creative process. Tony Zierra directed, shot and edited the film and Elizabeth Yoffe produced.
Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood captures an entirely different dimension of filmmaking by focusing on the most controversial period of German film history – and examining titles produced during the Third Reich, from blatant propaganda to seemingly ‘harmless’ entertainment. About 1000 feature films were made in Germany in the years between 1933-45, but only a few were created as overtly Nazi propaganda films. Suchland’s incisive analysis shows how even the most innocent entertainment carries with it a subversive ideological – and in this case Nazi – message.
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Watch Trailer for MUDBOUND Dee Rees Powerful Indie Drama from Sundance 2017
The trailer dropped today for Mudbound directed by Dee Rees (Pariah) which premiered earlier this year at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film starring Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Jonathan Banks and Garrett Hedlund will debut on Netflix and in select theaters onFriday, November 17.
Set in the post-WWII South, this epic pioneer story pits two families against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad. Newly transplanted from the quiet civility of Memphis, the McAllans are underprepared and overly hopeful for Henry’s grandiose farming dreams while Laura strives to keep the faith in her husband’s losing venture. For Hap and Florence Jackson, whose families have worked the land for generations, every day is a losing venture as they struggle bravely to build some small dream of their own. The war upends both families, as their returning loved ones, Jamie and Ronsel, forge a fast, uneasy friendship that challenges them all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZWhFI9lLQ
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2017 Fantastic Fest Announces Short Film Lineup, CERULIA, THE BURDEN, and More
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CERULIA by Sofia Carrillo[/caption]
The 2017 Fantastic Fest announced the short film line up for the 13th edition of the festival, which runs September 21 to September 28, 2017 at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX.
This year, to celebrate the festival’s Arabic theme, veteran festival programmer Peter Kuplowsky and Fantastic Fest creative director Evrim Ersoy have added a unique sidebar to the festival’s regular short-subject programming. YALLA! ARAB GENRE SHORTS assembles four remarkable genre productions from Arab countries, each with a distinct sensibility and style that further expands the breadth of genres traditionally showcased at the festival.
The 48 film lineup, culled from a record submission pool of nearly 1200 entries, spans 23 countries and features a trio of stop-motion mini-masterpieces including the North American premiere of the chilling CERULIA by Sofia Carrillo (who genre fans will be familiar with from her contributions to the anthology feature XX) and the US premiere of THE BURDEN, Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s award-winning musical. Other highlights include an acclaimed and mind-melting short about escaping a Red Lobster commercial (GREAT CHOICE), and a potent sci-fi skewering of government bureaucracy so incendiary it was banned in Turkey (THE LAST SCHNITZEL)!
Speaking on the program, curator Kuplowsky commented: “With the proliferation of digital distribution channels, the audience for short films is growing exponentially and the mode of filmmaking is becoming more relevant than ever before. I’m thrilled that Fantastic Fest can be the first stop for so many of these fantastic films on their road to people’s eyeballs.”
The complete lineup, divided by program, is as follows:
FANTASTIC SHORTS
ANIMAL Iran, 2017 US Premiere, 15 min Directors: Bahram & Bahman Ark A desperate man adopts the guise of a ram in a plot to penetrate a heavily guarded border crossing. THE BURDEN Sweden, 2017 US Premiere, 14 min Director: Niki Lindroth von Bahr Lonely fish, tap-dancing mice and telemarketing monkeys harmonize in their collective angst towards the apocalyptic banality of the modern age in this epic stop-motion reverie. DEAD HORSES Spain, 2016 Texas Premiere, 6 min Directors: Marc Riba & Anna Solanas A child caught in a war zone innocently grapples to understand his horrifying surroundings in this grim stop-motion parable. FUCKING BUNNIES Finland, 2017 Texas Premiere, 17 min Director: Teemu Niukkanen The comfortable routine of Raimo’s middle-class life is interrupted when a Satan-worshipping sex cult moves next door. A wickedly funny comedy of manners. JUST GO! Latvia, 2017 Texas Premiere, 11 min Director: Pavels Gumennikovs Young Just may not have legs, but that doesn’t prevent him from proverbially kicking ass in this remarkable slice of action inspired by the star’s extraordinary life story. KAIJU BUNRAKU USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 13 min Directors: Lucas Leyva & Jillian Mayer The Japanese art of bunraku puppetry dramatizes the existential crisis of a despondent denizen of a Kaiju-infested region of Japan; a rigorous theatrical tradition soaked in profound absurdism. THE LAST SCHNITZEL Denmark, 2016 US Premiere, 22 min Directors: Ismet Kurtulus & Kaan Arici The world is ending, but the president of Turkey won’t let it until he has a chicken schnitzel. Gleefully silly science-fiction satire with political bite. LET THEM DIE LIKE LOVERS USA, 2017 World Premiere, 16 min Director: Jesse Atlas Fantastic Shorts Award Winner Jesse Atlas (RECORD/PLAY) returns to the section with an arresting sci-fi character study about a body-hopping assassin. THE NIGHT I DANCE WITH DEATH France, 2017 Regional Premiere, 6 min Director: Vincent Gibaud The consequences of saying “hell yeah, I’ll try that” at a party. A marvelously animated kaleidoscope that collides liberating euphoria with crippling anxiety.SHORT FUSE Presented by Stage 13
CERULIA Mexico, 2017 North American Premiere, 13 min Director: Sofia Carrillo The brilliant animator behind the stop-motion segments of XX spins an eerie fable about a young woman’s repressed memories luring her back to her childhood home. CRESWICK Australia, 2016 Regional Premiere, 10 min Director: Natalie Erika James Creeping dread meticulously escalates to an understated but deeply unsettling coda as a father and daughter pack away the contents of their family home. EARWORM USA, 2016 Texas Premiere, 5 min Director: Tara Price When a few measures of music get stuck in a man’s head, the consequences are almost as disturbing as the source of the tune. GREAT CHOICE USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 7 min Director: Robin Comisar A woman is trapped in a Red Lobster commercial. Sublime absurdity that crescendos to nightmarish heights and remarkable emotional resonance. HIGHWAY Australia, 2016 Texas Premiere, 10 min Director: Vanessa Gazy A teenage hitchhiker traverses a lonely mountain highway and begins to pick a mysterious radio broadcast rife with ominous reports of the near future. LATCHED Canada, 2017 International Premiere, 17 min Directors: Justin Harding & Rob Brunner Spilt milk is nothing to cry over but when it inadvertently awakens a voracious woodland creature, this funny and freaky short makes the case that it might be something to scream over. SETACEOUS Australia, 2017 World Premiere, 11 min Director: Tel Benjamin An incessant car alarm attracts the curiosity of a cul-de-sac’s residents with chilling consequences. A measured slice of suburban horror that implies and terrifies. STAY USA, 2017 World Premiere, 9 min Director: David Mikalson Satan sucks, but this pitch-black comedy about catching the eye of the prince of darkness is the best. THURSDAY NIGHT Portugal, 2017 US Premiere, 8 min Director: Gonçalo Almeida Hypnotic cinematography buoyed by a ghostly soundscape envelopes remarkable canine performances in this moody, experimental nightmare. TOOTH FAIRY Uruguay, 2017 World Premiere, 6 min Directors: Jeremias Segovia & Gonzalo Torrens A greedy young boy discovers that the Tooth Fairy is a stickler for the rules in this frightening permutation of the folk figure. VOYEUR Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 4 min Directors: Claire Stradwick & Charlotte Lam The private spaces of women are unnervingly encroached upon by a masculine other in this confrontational work that shifts cinema’s scopophilic gaze back on the audience.SHORTS WITH LEGS
THE ALIENS USA, 2017 World Premiere, 4 min Director: Alex Lee A punk ruminates on the consequences of an alien invasion during some katana practice in the park. beans. USA, 2017 World Premiere, 7 min Director: Maxwell Nalevansky An acerbic narrator reflects nostalgically on the profound pleasure that was afforded to him upon once being offered a free bowl of beans. CALL OF CUTENESS Germany, 2017 Austin Premiere, 4 min Director: Brenda Lien A parade of cat meme tributes mutate into a disturbing animated critique of how these sublime objects of cuteness belie a more sinister cycle of exploitation and control. THE CURE USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 20 min Director: Mike Olenick A surreal sci-fi soap opera that collides the idiosyncratic private lives of both humans and aliens in a parade of hypnotic slow-zooms and kitschy feline totems. HOMER_A Canada, 2017 World Premiere, 10 min Directors: Milos Mitrovic & Conor Sweeney Conor Sweeney of ASTRON-6 and FF alumni Milos Mitrovic smash the characters of THE SIMPSONS with the aesthetics of TRASH HUMPERS, and the results both haunt and disturb. Ay caramba. LA TRISTESSE DURERA TOUJOURS USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Vinny De Giulio Vinny De Ghoulie returns to SHORTS WITH LEGS with what may very well be his 8 ½. This is a maddening deconstruction of his own process culled from the remnants of a feature film he mounted, but failed to to realize. As amusingly bemusing as it is devastating. MÖBIUS USA, Canada, 2017 Regional Premiere, 15 min Director: Sam Kuhn A hallucinogenic dive into the consciousness of a teenage poet in the wake of her lover’s mysterious death. Exquisitely photographed and seemingly assembled in a Lynchian dreamstate. THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT Canada, 2017 Texas Premiere, 8 min Director: Matthew Rankin Visionary inventor Nikola Tesla makes one last appeal to his benefactor in Matthew Rankin’s mesmerizing live-action/animated hybrid that paints with light itself to conjure its indelible abstract visuals. THE VETTING USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 19 min Director: Matthew Dunehoo A twitchy and hysterically garish political satire in which a US senator is vetted for a Presidential nomination by a 6,000-year-old telepath that secretly rules the Earth. THE VIEW FROM HERE Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 9 min Director: Sofia Bohdanowicz A delirious puppet-theatre libretto that depicts two lovers nostalgically yearning for the good-old-primordial-soup days of yore.YALLA! ARAB GENRE SHORTS:
DUNIA Qatar, 2017 North American Premiere, 15 min Director: Amer Jamhour Little Dunia is asked to wait in the car in an effort to shield her from her mother’s desperate decision, but when a curious cop comes a-knocking, Dunia’s innocence is suspensefully put to the test. FEAR: AUDIBLY Saudi Arabia, 2017 International Premiere, 22 min Director: Maha Al-Saati Anxious that Judgment Day is on the horizon, Amal keenly awaits to hear the Trumpet of Doom; could the incessant mewing of cats in her office be the first harbinger? An eccentric and experimental rumination on the end of days. KINDIL Algeria, Kuwait, USA, 2016 Regional Premiere, 40 min Director: Damien Ounouri The spectre of a murdered woman returns to the site of her death, claiming the lives of those responsible, as well as those who turned a blind eye. An arresting social critique in the guise of a vengeful ghost story. LAST DAYS OF THE MAN OF TOMORROW Germany, Lebanon, 2017 World Premiere, 29 min Director: Fadi Baki A remarkable mock-doc that profoundly explores Lebanon’s turbulent history through the life and times of a reclusive metal automaton that once was emblematic of the country’s hopes and dreams.PAIRED WITH FEATURES:
THE ACCOMPLICE USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 7 min Directors: Jon Hoeg & John F. Beach A man discovers his unwitting participation in a bank robbery across a series of increasingly incriminating (and hilarious) answering machine messages. CATHERINE Belgium, 2016 Special Presentation, 11 min Director: Britt Raes Delightful animation depicts the origins of a crazy cat lady, while disturbingly proving the axiom: “You always hurt the ones you love.” THE DROP-IN Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 13 min Director: Naledi Jackson A hairstylist confronted with her past fights to protect her future in this stylish, genre-hopping metaphor for the immigrant experience. THE DUNDEE PROJECT USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 19 min Director: Mark Borchardt Cult filmmaker Mark Borchardt (as seen in AMERICAN MOVIE) takes a trip to the UFO Days festival in Dundee, Wisconsin. Eccentric personalities abound as Mark poetically ruminates on why the compulsion to seek out little green men seems to converge in his home state. THE END OF DECAY USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Chris Todd A paraplegic scientist attempts a dangerous experiment to reclaim his mobility in this visceral bit of gruesome, wince-inducing body-horror. GIRL AT THE DOOR South Korea, 2017 Texas Premiere, 11 min Director: Song Joo-sung A young girl gleans a few choice maneuvers from gym class that enable her to turn the tables on her abusive father. MANILA DEATH SQUAD Philippines, USA, 2017 World Premiere, 13 min Director: Dean Colin Marcial An ambitious journalist challenges the leader of a violent vigilante group to a high-stakes drinking game that may score her a scoop or a bullet to the head. NEONATAL USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 15 min Director: Andrew McDonald In this tense Austin-bound thriller, an expectant mother is lured into a sinister plot by a disturbed and desperate woman. NOTHING A LITTLE SOAP AND WATER CAN’T FIX USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 9 min Director: Jennifer Proctor An exhaustive and illuminating deconstruction of how horror films frequently feature the bathtub as both a private sanctuary for women and, damningly, as an impromptu sarcophagus. THE PASSENGER Russia, 2017 International Premiere, 11 min Director: Egor Abramenko A Russian cosmonaut grapples with post-traumatic stress following his return from orbit. But that’s not all he’s brought back. UFO DAYS USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 9 min Director: Quinn Else A fascinating fusion of documentary and fiction against the backdrop of UFO Days that juxtaposes a Ufology lecture with the rural wanderings of an enigmatic “visitor.” VIULU Finland, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Ramin Sohrab When a precious violin is snatched by gangsters, an ex-hitman wreaks some serious martial-vengeance in an effort to reclaim it. YOUR DATE IS HERE USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 6 min Directors: Todd Spence & Zak White An old Mystery Date-style board game holds more evil than amusement in this expertly wound fright flick. ZARR-DOS Switzerland, 2017 North American Premiere, 7 min Director: Bart Wasem Two grotesque floating heads engage in an aerial waltz of wanton destruction in this spectacularly animated epic. You won’t have a clue, but you’ll appreciate the cosmic justice.
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HER LOVE BOILS BATHWATER is Japan’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Ryota Nakano’s Her Love Boils Bathwater (湯を沸かすほどの熱い愛 / Yu o Wakasu Hodo no Atsui Ai) has been selected by Japan as the country’s submission in the foreign-language category at the 2018 Oscars.
The film stars Rie Miyazawa, Hana Sugisaki, Yukiko Shinohara, Taro Suruga, Aoi Ito, Tori Matsuzaka, Joe Odagiri
InHer Love Boils Bathwater, Futaba is a loving but strict single mother whose world is shaken when she discovers she has terminal cancer and has only a few months to live. Newly determined, she decides to use the brief amount of time she has left to bring back her husband, reopen their shut-down bathhouse, and set her teenage daughter on the path to independence. As she attempts to reconcile her splintered family before it is too late, long-repressed revelations rise to the surface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQYrbqO0d48