Traverse City Film Festival released the 2019 program marking the 15th Anniversary Year with a “Cinema Saves The World” theme, and featuring over 200 films and events. The Festival opens with BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON; AFTER THE WEDDING as Centerpiece; and closes with BLINDED BY THE LIGHT.
The Fantasia International Film Festival unleashed the final wave of films and programming for the 2019 edition of the festival revealing a full lineup featuring over 130 incredible features from across the globe. Of note, the festival will host the World Premieres of MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT, BLOOD ON HER NAME, STARE, 1BR, THE DEEPER YOU DIG, and HOMEWRECKER; the North American Premieres of VIVARIUM, DREADOUT, and LES PARTICULES; the Canadian Premieres of THE LODGE, PROMARE, ANOTHER CHILD, and SWALLOW; and Special Advance Screenings of READY OR NOT and A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND.
The 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will open with All is True directed by Kenneth Branagh on Friday, January 4, and close with Ladies in Black, directed by Bruce Beresford on Sunday, January 13. The Festival will screen 223 films from 78 countries, with a focus on cinema from France, India and Mexico, Premieres, Talking Pictures, Book to Screen, Special Presentations, FLOS: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions, Gay!La, Local Spotlight, Modern Masters, True Stories, World Cinema Now, a 30-film retrospective of selections from past festivals and more.
In All is True, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen star in Branagh’s intimate, revelatory portrait of William Shakespeare in the last act of his life. His career over, he returns to his home in Stratford-upon-Avon to encounter old ghosts, old loves, and his resentful family. Branagh is expected to attend.
Ladies in Black, set in Sydney in 1959, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Bruce Beresford takes us back to the heyday of glamorous upscale department stores, when a concierge met you at the door and clerks wore gloves. The film from Lumila Films stars Julia Ormond, Angourie Rice, Rachael Taylor, Ryan Corr, Shane Jacobson and Alison McGirr. Beresford, Ormond, Taylor and McGirr are expected to attend.
Bergman – a Year in a Life[/caption]
Provocative cinema, historical film epics, and an homage to Swedish master director Ingmar Bergman are the hallmarks of the Specials section of the 60th Nordic Film Days Lübeck, which runs from October 30 to November 4. In honor of the centenary of Bergman’s birth, the festival, which showed the maestro’s classic “Sawdust and Tinsel” at the very first NFL in 1956, will this year screen two relatively unknown Bergman gems – “From the Life of the Marionettes” (GER/SWE 1980), and “The Touch” (SWE/US 1970), in some cases newly digitized. In addition, the documentaries “Bergman – a Year in a Life” (SWE/NOR 2018), “Ingmar Bergman” (SWE 1971), and “The Memory of Ingmar Bergman” (FIN 2018) use personal remembrances, or special times in the director’s life, to take a look back at his life and work. Another film takes a very different approach to Bergman’s oeuvre. “Bergman revisited” (SWE 2018) is a compilation of short films – some irreverent, some experimental, some classic – by six Swedish filmmakers that completely reinterpret motifs from Bergman’s life and art.
The Specials section also has a showcase for another world-renowned Swede. Pernille Fischer Christensen’s film “Becoming Astrid” is a complex portrait of beloved children’s and young adult author Astrid Lindgren, with Alba August giving an outstanding performance in the title role. The film focusses on the author’s early writing years, which were formative in her later life and work. The Specials section is also screening “Border”(SWE/DEN 2018), directed by Ali Abbasi, which won the main prize in the “Un Certain Regard” section at Cannes, and Sweden’s submission for the 2018 Oscar “U – July 22” (NOR 2018), Erik Poppe’s controversion treatment of the massacre at a Norwegian youth camp.
Two period dramas from Denmark will take audiences back to the past: Bille August’s “A Fortunate Man” (DEN 2018), an adaptation of the eponymous Danish book classic, and the German-Danish co-production “In Love and War” (DEN/GER/CZE 2018), which was the first production to benefit from the new German-Danish Coproduction Development Initiative. The Specials section is rounded out with the newest film adaptation of a Jussi Adler Olsen book – “The Purity of Vengeance” (DEN/GER 2018), directed by Christoffer Boe, was shot partially in Hamburg. It’s another thrilling case for Detective Carl Mørck and his Department Q team.