The 53rd New York Film Festival taking place
September 25 to October 11, 2015, revealed the complete lineup for the Spotlight on Documentary section. The Spotlight on Documentary section will launch on Sunday, September 27, with a program highlighting episodic, short-form nonfiction, which will include a preview of new work by Laura Poitras, who follows up her Oscar-winning CITIZENFOUR (which had its World Premiere at NYFF last year) with the series Asylum, an intimate look at one of the most revolutionary and controversial thinkers of the digital age, unfolding in episodes. A behind-the-scenes drama, Asylum follows Julian Assange as he publishes classified U.S. State Department cables and eventually seeks political asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The evening will include a preview of episodes from the series, as well as the premiere of new, multi-part work from other acclaimed filmmakers, which will be announced at a later date.
This year’s lineup also includes three films centered on iconic figures within the arts: Nora Ephron, Ingrid Bergman, and Jia Zhangke. Everything Is Copy director Jacob Bernstein delivers a vibrant portrait of his mother Nora Ephron, through her own words and the memories of her sisters, colleagues, former spouses, friends, and scenes from her movies. Stig Björkman’s focus in Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words is not on Bergman the star but on Bergman the woman and mother, using excerpts from her letters and diaries (extracts of which are read by Alicia Vikander); memories shared from her children (Pia Lindström and Isabella, Ingrid, and Roberto Rossellini); and clips from Super-8 and 16mm home movies shot by Bergman herself. Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang is the latest film from Brazilian director Walter Salles, who accompanies the director (whose latest, Mountains May Depart, is screening in this year’s NYFF Main Slate) on a visit to his hometown and other locations he has returned to in his vast body of work.
NYFF welcomes back director Frederick Wiseman with his 40th feature documentary, In Jackson Heights, which centers around one of New York City’s liveliest and most culturally diverse neighborhoods caught in the crunch of economic “development,” like so many other neighborhoods in the city and around the country. Joaquim Pinto returns to the festival, following his 2013 film What Now? Remind Me (NYFF51), with Fish Tail, co-directed with his husband Nuno Leonel, set in the Azorean island of Rabo de Peixe, where small-scale fishermen introduce the filmmakers to the rhythms of their labor-intensive routines—artisanal traditions that face extinction in the global economy.
Politics play a role in several of the selections in the lineup. Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson, who premiered a series of immigration films How Democracy Works at NYFF51, return with their final film on the subject, Immigration Battle. The duo have continued to chronicle the struggle for American immigration reform over the past 16 years, crossing the country numerous times to film politicians and activists on both sides of the issue. The North American Premiere of We Are Alive from Chilean filmmaker Carmen Castillo (her Calle Santa Fe was a selection of the 2007 NYFF) is a documentary essay asking the questions: What comprises political engagement in 2015? Is it still possible to influence the course of events in this world? She structures her film in dialogue with the writings of her late friend Daniel Bensaïd, organizer of the Paris student revolts in May ’68 and France’s leading Trotskyite philosopher.
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
Everything Is Copy
Jacob Bernstein, 2015, USA, DCP, 89m
Jacob Bernstein’s extremely entertaining film is a tribute to his mother Nora Ephron: Hollywood-raised daughter of screenwriters who grew up to be an ace reporter turned piercingly funny essayist turned novelist/screenwriter/playwright/director. Ephron comes vibrantly alive onscreen via her words; the memories of her sisters, colleagues, former spouses, and many friends; scenes from her movies; and, above all, her own inimitable presence. Watch any given moment of Ephron being her sparkling but caustically witty self (for instance, this response to a scolding talk show host—“You have a soft spot for Julie Nixon, don’t you. See, I don’t…”) and you find it hard to believe that she’s been gone from our midst for three years. Everything Is Copy (Ephron’s motto, inherited from her mother) is a lovingly drawn but frank portrait and, incidentally, a vivid snapshot of an earlier, livelier, bitchier, and funnier moment in New York culture. An HBO Documentary Films release. World Premiere
Field of Vision: New Episodic Nonfiction
Laura Poitras, USA/Germany, 2015, HDCAM
A selection of short-form episodic works, including installments of Asylum, in which Laura Poitras (whose CITIZENFOUR had its world premiere at last year’s NYFF) shadows WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he publishes classified diplomatic cables and seeks asylum in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. World Premiere
Fish Tail / Rabo de Peixe (pictured above)
Joaquim Pinto & Nuno Leonel, Portugal, 2015, DCP, 103m
Portuguese with English subtitles
In his 2013 masterpiece What Now? Remind Me (NYFF51), Joaquim Pinto turned a first-person diary about chronic illness into an all-encompassing meditation on what it means to be alive. His latest film, co-directed with his husband Nuno Leonel, pulls off a similar balancing act between intimacy and expansiveness. The setting is the Azorean island of Rabo de Peixe, where small-scale fishermen introduce the filmmakers to the rhythms of their labor-intensive routines, artisanal traditions that face extinction in the global economy. Initially broadcast on Portuguese television in an abbreviated version, this new director’s cut is a tender portrait of a community that, through Pinto’s associative narration, frequently extends into more personal and philosophical realms, contemplating such topics as the value of manual work and the meaning of freedom. Fish Tail is as lovely as it is quietly profound, a film that at once acknowledges and transcends cinema’s long romance with maritime ethnography. North American Premiere
Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)
Part 1: Before the Fall
Part 2: After the Battle
Abbas Fahdel, Iraq/France, 2015, DCP, 160m/174m
Arabic with English subtitles
In February 2002—about a year before the U.S. invasion in 2003—Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture everyday life as his country prepared for war. He zeroed in on family and friends as they went about their business, with much of the action seen through the eyes of the director’s 12-year-old nephew, Haider. When Fahdel returned in 2003, two weeks after the invasion, daily activities like going to school or shopping at the market had become nearly impossible; many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens, yet everyone pressed on. The young Haider represents, in various ways, the voice of his people: “They are occupiers and we can’t oppose them. Our country has become like Palestine,” he tells a neighbor. Fahdel’s epic yet intimate film paints a compelling portrait of people simply trying to exist in the midst of constant turmoil, and describes the fine line between life and death that civilians in a war zone must walk from day to day. North American Premiere
Immigration Battle
Michael Camerini & Shari Robertson, USA, 2015, DCP, 111m
Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson have been chronicling the protracted struggle for American immigration reform over the past 16 years, crossing the country numerous times to film politicians and activists on both sides of this great and divisive issue. They gained unprecedented fly-on-the-wall access to the key players in Washington as they rode the momentum toward the passage of a bipartisan bill, only to see it shot down, which meant that they had to begin pushing the boulder back up the hill all over again. Two years ago, NYFF51 screened Camerini and Robertson’s series of immigration films, How Democracy Works, and now we present Immigration Battle, their final film on the subject. The key player this time is Democrat Luis Gutiérrez, the charismatic U.S. Representative for the 4th congressional district of Illinois, who negotiates his way through this political minefield—past an obstructionist majority playing to an anti-immigrant base and a President who has just been dubbed the “Deporter-in-Chief” by the pro-reform community—while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the prize. World Premiere
Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
Stig Björkman, Sweden, 2015, DCP, 114m
Swedish with English subtitles
This is a lovingly crafted film about one of the cinema’s most luminous and enchanting presences, composed from her letters and diaries (extracts of which are read by Alicia Vikander), the memories of her children (Pia Lindström and Isabella, Ingrid, and Roberto Rossellini), and a few close friends and colleagues (including Liv Ullmann and Sigourney Weaver), photographs, and moments from thousands of feet of Super-8 and 16mm footage shot by Bergman herself throughout the years. Stig Björkman’s focus is not on Bergman the star but on Bergman the woman and mother: orphaned at 13, drawn to acting on the stage and then on film, sailing for Hollywood at 24 and then leaving it all behind for a new and different life with Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words is, finally, a self-portrait of a truly independent woman. A Rialto Pictures release.
In Jackson Heights
Frederick Wiseman, USA, 2015, DCP, 190m
Fred Wiseman’s 40th feature documentary is about Jackson Heights, Queens, one of New York City’s liveliest and most culturally diverse neighborhoods, a thriving and endlessly changing crossroad of styles, cuisines, and languages, and now—like vast portions of our city—caught in the gears of economic “development.” Wiseman’s mastery is as total as it is transparent: his film moves without apparent effort from an LGBT support meeting to a musical street performance to a gathering of Holocaust survivors to a hilarious training class for aspiring taxi drivers to an ace eyebrow-removal specialist at work to the annual Gay Pride parade to a meeting of local businessmen in a beauty parlor to discuss the oncoming economic threat to open-air merchants selling their wares to a meeting of undocumented individuals facing deportation. Wiseman catches the textures of New York life in 2015, the music of our speech, and a vast, emotionally complex, dynamic tapestry is woven before our eyes. A Zipporah Films release.
Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang
Walter Salles, Brazil/France, 2014, DCP, 99m
Mandarin with English subtitles
Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles accompanies the prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke (whose latest, Mountains May Depart, is screening in this year’s Main Slate) on a walk down memory lane, as he revisits his hometown and other locations used in creating his vast body of work. At each location, they visit Jia’s family, friends, and former colleagues, and their conversations range from his mother’s tales of him as a young boy to amusing remembrances of school days and film shoots to memories of his father and the fact that if not for pirated DVDs, much of Jia’s work would go unseen in China. All the roads traveled are part of one journey—the destination of which is Jia’s relationship to his past and to his country. And the confluence of storytelling, intellect, and politics informing all of Jia’s work is brought to light in this lovely, intimate portrait of the artist on his way to the future. North American Premiere
Rebel Citizen
Pamela Yates, USA, 2015, DCP, 75m
Pamela Yates’s new film grew out of her friendship with master cinematographer and fellow activist Haskell Wexler, who’s still going strong at 93. Wexler asked Yates to represent him at a retrospective of his documentary work at this year’s Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris, and she responded by making a film portrait of her mentor and longtime collaborator. Wexler—in an interview with Yates shot by Travis Wilkerson, another comrade-in-arms—speaks with warmth, lucidity, and absolute certitude about his left-wing political beliefs, his craft, and his aesthetics, which are fundamentally one in the same. Rebel Citizen takes us on a revelatory tour of Wexler’s work, and it includes clips from his early documentary The Bus, shot aboard a bus on its way across the country to the 1963 March on Washington, as well as Medium Cool and Underground, his film about the Weatherman co-directed with Emile de Antonio and Mary Lampson. A Skylight Pictures release. World Premiere
Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art
James Crump, USA, 2015, DCP, 72m
The titular troublemakers are the New York–based Land (aka Earth) artists of the 1960s and 70s, who walked away from the reproducible and the commodifiable, migrated to the American Southwest, worked with earth and light and seemingly limitless space, and rethought the question of scale and the relationships between artist, landscape, and viewer. Director James Crump (Black White + Gray) has meticulously constructed Troublemakers from interviews (with Germano Celant, Virginia Dwan, and others), photos and footage of Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Charles Ross at work on their astonishing creations: Heizer’s Double Negative, a 1,500-feet long “line” cut between two canyons on Mormon Mesa in Nevada; Holt’s concrete Sun Tunnels, through each of which the sun appears differently according to the season; De Maria’s The Lightning Field in New Mexico; and Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, built on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. A beautiful tribute to a great moment in art.
We Are Alive / On est vivants
Carmen Castillo, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 100m
French, Spanish, and Portuguese with English subtitles
What comprises political engagement in 2015? Is it still possible to influence the course of events in this world? These are the questions posed by the great Chilean filmmaker Carmen Castillo (her Calle Santa Fe was a selection of the 2007 NYFF) in this new documentary essay. Castillo, herself a one-time MIR militant expelled from Chile by the Pinochet regime, structures her film in dialogue with the writings of her late friend Daniel Bensaïd, organizer of the Paris student revolts in May ’68 and France’s leading Trotskyite philosopher. In Europe and Latin America, Castillo finds the ones who have resisted, from the masked Zapatistas of Chiapas in Mexico to the Water Warriors of Cochabamba in Bolivia, from the Landless Workers movement in Brazil to the striking workers at the Donges refinery in western France to the homeless squatters of Marseille. A mournful premise lays the groundwork for a radiantly hopeful film.
North American Premiere
The Witness
James Solomon, 2015, USA, DCP, 96m
On March 13, 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens, Kitty Genovese was stabbed, raped, robbed, and left to die by a man named Winston Moseley. On March 27, at the urging of Metro editor A.M. Rosenthal, The New York Times published an investigative report asserting that 38 eyewitnesses saw the attack and retreated to their apartments, and the case quickly became a symbol of urban apathy. Genovese’s family lost her twice: once to a murderer and once more to legend, a legend that would be questioned, dismantled, and discredited 40 years later in the very paper that had created it. James Solomon’s quiet, concentrated, and devastating film closely follows the efforts of Genovese’s brother Bill, 16 at the time of Kitty’s death, to track down the people who knew her, loved her, and tried to help her, to arrange a possible meeting with her killer, and to recover the presence of his beloved sister. A Submarine release. World Premiere
Read more
MUSTANG directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven is the winner of the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Feature Film at the 21st Sarajevo Film Festival. Mustang stars Güneş Sensoy, Doğba Doğuslu, Tuğba Sunguroğlu, Elit Işcan, Ilayda Akdoğan, Nihal Koldaş, and Ayberk Pekcan.
Waffle Street, a dramedy starring James Lafferty (One Tree Hill, Oculus, S. Darko) and Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon 1-4, The Color Purple, Dreamgirls), will World Premiere at the 16th annual On Location: Memphis International Film & Music Fest to be held 
When his amputated leg is discovered in a grill sold at a North Carolina auction, John Wood finds himself at the center of a worldwide media frenzy. Believing the new-found attention to be his chance at doing some great things in an otherwise disappointing, wayward life, he’s quickly swept up in the hysteria as the leg’s enterprising buyer, Shannon Whisnant, then sues to regain its custody. But the stranger-than-fiction chain of events, fueling John’s drug addiction and compounded by generations of his familial dysfunction, soon sets John on the streets and heading to his certain demise. Just in time, however, another twist in these fantastical occurrences gives John a final shot at becoming whole for the first time in his life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZEsctQNCI
PARTISAN directed by Ariel Kleiman and starring Vincent Cassel as Gregori, a cult leader, along with Jeremy Chabriel and Florence Mezzara will open in theaters and On Demand October 2, 2015. PARTISAN premiered earlier this year at the 
Patrick Kennelly’s feature film debut, EXCESS FLESH about an obsessive woman who imprisons her new roommate in their apartment in a sick attempt to bring them closer together, will have its U.S. theatrical release early next year 
ASTHMA the directorial debut of Dustin Hofman’s son, Jake Hoffman, 
The Woodstock Film Festival announced its New for 2015 World Cinema Competition, including a special Focus on Dutch Cinema in partnership with the Netherlands Consulate General in New York. The Woodstock Film Festival has programmed three Dutch narratives to showcase the vast range Dutch cinema has to offer: RENDEZ-VOUS, MEET ME IN VENICE, and SUMMER. All Dutch filmmakers will be in attendance.
Sparked by this joint venture with the Netherlands Consulate and the superb selection of other international films at the festival, the 
Recounted by Lisa through a video she makes for her son, this Dutch father-daughter story of reconciliation unfolds between a woman and the father she first meets in adulthood. When the absentee Mauro invites Lisa to join him in Venice, she decides to go. But the journey doesn’t stop there, and the father-daughter road trip takes them from Italy to Istanbul along the Orient Express route, with breathtaking imagery of the Balkans and heartwarming musical interludes. In getting to know her father, Lisa gets to know herself.
SUMMER (ZOMER), DIRECTED BY COLETTE BOTHOF
NEW YORK PREMIERE
“Zomer” (“Summer”) is sweltering in a Dutch village where everyday life is dominated by the continually droning power plant. Anne, a quiet girl who longs to escape the confines of her small town, often feels like an outsider — until she meets Lena, a new girl in town who rides a motorbike, wears leather and is different from everybody else. With the awkward tenderness of youth and innocence, the two girls quickly form a bond and the audience gets to watch as young love unfolds. Authentic performances and cinematography that captures the languor and heat of summertime create a beautiful story of sexual awakening and a girl daring to be different. For those who have traveled beyond the teenage years, it is a reminder of the possibilities life holds.
MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS, DIRECTED BY JOHNNY O’REILLY
RUSSIA – US PREMIERE
Moscow Never Sleeps is a multi-narrative drama about the hidden bonds that connects us all. The film dives headlong into the volatile intersections of contemporary Moscow and the intimate lives of five people.
O’Reilly’s short The Terms screened at the 2001 Woodstock Film Fest, winning for Best Short Film.
THERE SHOULD BE RULES, DIRECTED BY LINDA-MARIE BIRBECK
SWEDEN – EAST COAST PREMIERE
Mia and Mirjam, two passionate, free-spirited 14-year-olds, along with Karl, who is inventive and wise beyond his years, are a close knit threesome in a small town in Sweden where nothing ever happens. Mia wishes there were no rules and tempts life again and again. Mirjam, seeking love, finds her road to adulthood in a steamy romance with an older man who claims he loves her. Karl, supporting Mia’s sense of loss as her best friend is pulled away by new love, helps concoct ways to bring Mirjam back to them. While friendship and family bonds are tested and facades eventually crumble, the teens declare, “we are never becoming ordinary.”
The 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival, revealed the lineup for Cinema Hooligante. Several of this year’s films take viewers beyond the trappings of traditional “horror,” bringing to the screen a wide range of styles and genres from science fiction and fantasy to comedy and animation.
Highlighting the range of styles and films on display are the rare 35mm presentations of Jaws, on its 40th anniversary, and The Shining, on its 35th anniversary.
“I’m incredibly proud and excited to present films of this caliber in what is certainly the coolest program of the festival,” explains Jaclyn O’Grady, Programming Manager and Cinema Hooligante Co-Programmer. “One highlight for me is They Have Escaped (pictured in main image above), a shocking Finnish thriller about a road trip gone awry, which will leave you absolutely reeling when the credits roll.
This year also brings Canadian director Jeffrey St. Jules’ film Bang Bang Baby. With a dreamy allure akin to Little Shop of Horrors, Bang Bang Baby bends the genre toward musical oddity. Beginning with a love story of a teenage singer and a famous popstar, St. Jules’ imagination runs wild and the cinematography magical as a chemical plant leak descends to turn dreams into nightmares. St. Jules is scheduled to appear at the festival.
The series also represents the classics of horror storytelling, as Edgar Allan Poe comes to life in Extraordinary Tales, an animated film anthology featuring five of Poe’s greatest works. The film features “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar” and “The Masque of the Red Death.”
Bang Bang Baby
(Canada / 2014 / Director: Jeffrey St. Jules)
A demented blend of 1950s sci-fi and musicals, Bang Bang Baby is a brazenly original, genre-twisting fever dream of a film. Stepphy (Jane Levy) is a high school girl with dreams of breaking out of her sleepy hometown, and her acceptance into the American Ingénue Singing Competition seems to be the ticket. But her alcoholic father (Peter Stormare) refuses to let her go, and it’s only the arrival of heartthrob singer Bobby Shore into town that gives her a chance — that is, if she can keep Bobby from noticing the freakish mutations and hallucinations being brought forth by a factory leak in the town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPeVHaOm4AA
Extraordinary Tales
(Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, USA / 2015 / Director: Raul Garcia)
This ghoulish anthology film celebrating the macabre works of Edgar Allan Poe is broken into five distinct animated segments (including classic works such as “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”). Aided by narration from some of horror’s most beloved luminaries (Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi and Guillermo del Toro, to name a few), Poe’s psychological adventures are brought to startling life, each story receiving its own particular animation style uniquely suited to its creepy tone. If your spine is in the market for shivers, this is the choice for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amniFA0UEKc
Jaws
(USA / 1975 / Director: Steven Spielberg)
Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, Jaws comes to the Milwaukee Film Festival. Often imitated but never replicated, Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning cultural phenomenon remains the apex predator of summer blockbuster filmmaking. A story of the small town of Amity (which, as you know, means “friendship”), the great white shark that’s terrorizing it, and the trio of dudes tasked with putting a stop to it hasn’t lost a step over 40 years later. If you’ve only ever seen this classic from the comfort of home, you’re going to need a bigger screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1fu_sA7XhE
Nina Forever
(United Kingdom / 2015 / Directors: Ben Blaine, Chris Blaine)
We all have baggage; it just so happens that Rob’s returns from the dead, gorily erupting through the bed sheets any time he attempts to sleep with his new girlfriend. Left physically and emotionally wounded after a car accident that robbed him of his beloved Nina, Rob is finally taking timid steps toward re-entering the world with the help of his supermarket co-worker Holly, only to find that Nina has a penchant for violently reappearing with sarcastic words of support mid-coitus. This sly horror-comedy-romance provides a fresh take on the genre, a sexy, blood-drenched ode to the ways our past continues to haunt us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IokJt_05co
The Shining
(USA, United Kingdom / 1980 / Director: Stanley Kubrick)
All digital and no 35 mm screenings make Jack a dull boy, so feast your eyes on this special 35 mm screening of Stanley Kubrick’s legendary horror tale. Snugly nestled away in the mountains, the Overlook Hotel offers plenty of vacancies. And when the Torrance family gets snowed in for the winter, recovering alcoholic father Jack (Jack Nicholson at his most iconic) gets a little stir-crazy. Take a shot of red rum, avoid all elevators and twins, and, whatever you do, don’t go into Room 237. This tale of conspiracy and insanity will lead you into a mental hedge maze you won’t soon escape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S014oGZiSdI
They Have Escaped (He ovat paenneet)
(Finland, Netherlands / 2014 / Director: J-P Valkeapää)
What begins as a tale of two teenage outcasts finding one another at a halfway house and subsequently running away together slowly morphs into a primal fairy tale that will challenge your senses and expand your mind. Joni and Raisa have run out of chances when they meet and see in one another a kindred chaotic spirit, so of course their intense bond leads to them leaving civilization altogether and embarking on a wild, nightmarish journey of drug use and feral living. Intimate and intense, They Have Escaped defies expectations, a movie that will uproot your sense of reality and leave you reeling.
https://vimeo.com/97110474
Turbo Kid
(Canada, New Zealand / 2015 / Directors: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell)
In the post-apocalyptic future of 1997, acid rain beats down on the barren landscape while evil warlord Zeus kidnaps people in order to harvest them for their precious water. In steps reluctant hero The Kid, a youngster content to tool around on his BMX bike and read old Turbo Man comic books all day. But when his only friend is taken hostage, he must embrace his destiny and become the hero he’s only ever read about. The retro-futuristic Turbo Kid is a cult classic in the making, combining ’80s movie nostalgia with geysers of blood to make something you’ve never seen before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh23-rQUi5U
White God
(Hungary / 2014 / Director: Kornél Mundruczó)
Imagine The Birds told from the animal’s perspective and you’re only scratching the surface of this remarkable Hungarian thriller, a morally challenging cautionary tale tackling cultural and political tension amid an all-out dog revolt. Lili is forced to abandon her beloved mutt, Hagen, due to the state’s strict breeding protocols, but she refuses to give up hope that they will be reunited. As Lili searches, Hagen is subjected to the cruelties of man and so slowly amasses an army of the unwanted to exact revenge. A remarkable feat of filmmaking, White God suggests instead of going to heaven, all dogs might unleash hell on Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIGz2kyo26U
A24 has debuted the scary new trailer and poster for THE WITCH, directed and written by Robert Eggers,
and starring Anya Taylor Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson. The Witch is scheduled to be released in theaters in 2016.
In this exquisitely-made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively brought together to tell the intimate and riveting story of one family’s frightful unraveling.
Set in New England circa 1630, The Witch follows a farmer who get cast out of his colonial plantation and is forced to move his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest rumored to be controlled by witches. Almost immediately, strange and unsettling things begin to happen-the animals turn violent, the crops fail, and one of the children disappears, only to return seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. As suspicion and paranoia mount, everyone begins to point the finger at teenage daughter Thomasin. They accuse her of witchcraft, which she adamantly denies…but as circumstances become more and more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty, and love will be tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.
Writer/director Robert Eggers’ debut feature, which premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival (and won the Best Director Prize in the U.S. Narrative Competition), painstakingly recreates a God-fearing New England decades before the 1692 Salem witch trials, in which religious convictions and pagan folklore famously clashed. Told through the eyes of the adolescent Thomasin – in a star-making turn by newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy – and supported by mesmerizing camera work and a powerful musical score, THE WITCH is a chilling and groundbreaking new take on the genre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXmlf3Sefg