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The Marrakech Film Festival unveiled its 2024 lineup on Thursday and set that Luca Guadagnino would replace Thomas Vinterberg as its jury president. The other jury members will be Andrew Garfield, Jacob Elordi, Virginie Efira, and Ali Abbasi. Vinterberg “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” festival organizers said.

The Marrakech fest on Thursday also unveiled the lineup for its competition, 11th Continent, and Moroccan Panorama sections, as well as gala and special screenings. In the competition, 14 films will compete for the Étoile d’Or, or Golden Star.

The 21st edition of the fest in Morocco will also honor Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and, posthumously, pay homage to Moroccan star Naïma Elmcherqui. The Marrakech fest takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 7.

Check out the full lineup for the 2024 edition below.

Competition

Across The Sea (LA Mer Au Loin)

by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi / France, Morocco, Belgium

with Ayoub Gretaa, Anna Mouglalis, Grégoire Colin, Omar Boulakirba,...

Bound In Heaven, the feature debut of director Huo Xin, won the top prize at the 2024 Rome Film Festival, with the awards unveiled at the Auditorium Parco della Musica on October 26.

The domestic abuse drama won best film in the Progressive Cinema Competition, the festival’s competitive strand, and also shared the best first feature award ex aequo with Edgardo Pistone’s Ciao Bambino.

Bound In Heaven premiered at Toronto, and features a starry cast including Ni Ni, Zhou You and Liao Fan. Director Huo is a veteran scriptwriter whose credits include Shower, Kung Fu Hustle, Sunflower and The Monkey King.

San Sebastian – “Bound in Heaven,” the directorial debut of experienced screenwriter Xin Huo, best known for “Kung Fu Hustle,” is the sole Chinese production in the Official Selection at San Sebastián, following its world premiere in Toronto’s Centrepiece section. The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Li Xiuwen, a Huading Award winner as part of the writing team for “Medal of the Republic.”

The story turns on Xia You (NiNi), a successful but emotionally drained woman trapped in a violently abusive relationship with her fiancé, played by Liao Fan, who won a Berlin Silver Bear for “Black Coal, Thin Ice.” In a harrowing early scene, Xia You defies her abuser, uttering the chilling and foreboding line, “Don’t smudge my makeup, the guests are still here,” a reflection of the fragile facade she is forced to uphold.

“The theme of domestic violence against women,...

Theirs is a love without name in “Bound in Heaven,” when the connection between Xia You (Ni Ni) and Xu Zitai (Zhou You) is so primal that neither bother to introduce themselves to one another until after spending a night together. Details like these can seem besides the point in Huo Xin’s torrid adaptation of Li Xiuwen’s novel of the same name. Passion trumps all else, both in front and behind the camera, in an auspicious directorial debut from the veteran screenwriter, who sees a doomed romance as an opportunity for a spirited drama when its central duo lives each day like their last.

Any day could well be for Xu, who knows the expiration date for the relationship will come sooner than later due to a terminal illness. As the humble owner of a noodle shop in Wuhan, getting treatment or even a proper diagnosis is out of reach.

Specialty sales and finance firm Rediance has picked up international sales rights to “Bound in Heaven,” the directorial debut feature of experienced Chinese screenwriter Huo Xin.

The tragic love story will have its world premiere this week in the Centerpiece section of the Toronto International Film Festival. It will subsequently travel to San Sebastian for its European debut.

Adapted from the novel of the same title by Li Xiuwen, the drama centers around a successful young woman who lives in the city with her abusive fiance and a lonely terminally ill man running a noodle shop in Wuhan. A chance encounter sparks an immediate attraction and their connection provides light and lightness in their emotional and dark journeys.

The film stars Ni Ni, who appeared in Zhang Yimou’s “The Flowers of War” and 2022 smash hit “Lost in the Stars.” Zhou You, who also appeared in Jia Zhangke’s Cannes...

Fall festival season picked up this last week with Venice and Telluride, and now Toronto is just around the corner, from 5-15 September 2024. This year, we’re seeing an exciting number of festival-favorite auteurs return, including Jia Zhang-ke (“Caught with the Wind”), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (“Cloud”), Mohammad Rassoulof (“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”), and Hong Sang-soo (“By the Stream”). For those who are in Toronto and are interested in the older classics, TIFF Classics offers some delectable 4k restorations of South Asian and Iranian selects this year, including Raj Kapoor‘s classic “Awara” (1951) and Sohrab Shahid Saless‘ “Time of Maturity” (1976).

In addition to these, genre films seem to make up a healthy number of Asian selections this year. Korean blockbuster star Hyun-bin returns in Woo Min-ho’s latest historical spy movie, “Harbin,” and Tumpbal Tampubolon‘s “Crocodile Tears” promises a “slow-burning suspense thriller.” Three of the infamously-campy Midnight Madness screenings...

China-based sales agent Rediance has picked up international rights to Chinese director Huo Xin’s feature debut Bound In Heaven, which is set to premiere at Toronto before heading to San Sebastian.

Director Huo is a veteran scriptwriter whose credits include acclaimed and hit films such as Shower, Kung Fu Hustle, Sunflower and The Monkey King.

She has assembled a strong cast for her feature debut including Ni Ni of box office hit Lost In The Stars and Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War; Zhou You of Jia Zhang-ke’s Caught By The Tides, which also plays at Toronto...

The 49th edition of the Toronto Film Festival continues to announce more movies, with the festival on Tuesday unveiled its 2024 Centrepiece lineup that features 43 titles from filmmakers representing 41 countries. TIFF runs September 5-15 under its new sponsorship with Rogers.

In total, the list includes 18 world premieres from Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Spain and the U.S..

The section is a reflection of TIFF’s spirit of providing an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work from influential filmmakers.

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who made it to Cannes this past year with The Seed of the Sacred Fig after fleeing his home country, is at TIFF with not one but two movies. He’ll have The Seed of the Sacred Fig, but also a title he wrote,...

Matthieu Laclau is a French editor who has been working in China and Taiwan since 2008. His collaboration with director Jia Zhangke in A Touch of Sin won him Best Film Editing at the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan’s equivalent to the Oscars. This year he edited three films in Cannes: Caught by the Tides in Competition, Black Dog in Un Certain Regard, and Meeting with Pol Pot in Cannes Premiere. We sat down with him during the festival and discussed his work on all three films. This interview is originally commissioned by Directube 导筒. The Chinese version will be published on Directube later.

The Film Stage: First, I want to congratulate you for having three films in the Official Selection at this year’s Cannes. How did you get involved with all three? Obviously, you worked with Jia Zhangke since A Touch of Sin but it’s your first time...

Diao Yi'nan's The Wild Goose Lake is being shown exclusively on Mubi from February 28 - March 28, 2020 in the United Kingdom in the series The New Auteurs.Illustration by Alix Pentecost FarrenEarly into Diao Yi’nan’s The Wild Goose Lake, Fan Liao’s Captain Liu stands before a group of plainclothes cops and a half-charted map. Liu and fellow officers are hunting down a gangster by the name of Zhou (Ge Hu), and the map shows his last known whereabouts: a town in southern China nestled along the Wild Goose Lake. Many of the cops aren’t locals, so the briefing doubles as a warning against the thug and one against the place itself. “Be well aware of the complexity of the lake area,” Liu says of the alien turf: “it’s a lawless place that no-one really controls.” In the sinisterly seductive world of Diao’s fourth feature, the...

"The reward goes to my wife. Can I trust you?" Film Movement has debuted the first official trailer for The Wild Goose Lake, a stunningly gorgeous modern noir gangster film from China. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and stopped by the Toronto and New York Film Festivals in the film. Hu Ge plays a gangster named Zhou Zenong on the run, who sacrifices everything for his family and a woman he meets while on the lam. This features "gorgeous, neon-drenched cinematography and bursts of shocking, expertly choreographed action." I caught this in Cannes and loved it, the cinematography is some of the best I've ever seen (read my full review). Also starring Lun-Mei Kwei, Fan Liao, Regina Wan, Dao Qi, Hua Hua, and Jue Huang. Highly recommend discovering this gem to anyone else that digs slick noir thrillers. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Diao Yinan's The Wild Goose Lake,...

Chicago – Obsessive love is a movie story staple, and “Ash is Purest White” puts a Chinese point-of-view on this strange phenomenon. This is a coupling in the background of organized crime and a changing China, and their success and failure is based on the events surrounding them as much as their devotion to each other.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

The film is dreamy, almost surreal, as it takes place between 2001 and 2018. The lead actors portraying the couple in essence represent the emerging capitalist China, setting their sights on territory, both within the relationship and the small fiefdoms that popped up in China’s soaring economy. At some point, after a key event, the film switches into a deliberateness that slows down everything, and it becomes a narrative not of action but of searching for something that didn’t exist in the first place. In a sense, the new China is precisely that … a...

by Murtada Elfadl

Fan Liao, Zhao and Jia at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival

Ash Is Purest White, opening tomorrow in select theaters, is Jia Zhang-Ke’s latest film. It has his trademark immersive, decades spanning storytelling. This time it is also a blend of gangster film, romance, and social critique. Again it starts his muse and collaborator Zhao Tao, this time playing Qiao, a quick-witted resourceful woman who falls into a decades long epic entalegment with her mobster boyfriend Bin (Fan Liao) within the jianghu (criminal underworld) of post-industrial Datong. We called it "bold, epic and fully detailed in equal measures" in our review. While in New York last October for Nyff, we got a chance to talk with Jia about his film. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Murtada Elfadl: What ideas did you want to push forward with this film?

Jia Zhang-Ke: This film spans...

In two weeks, Jia Zhangke’s new epic of crime and romance, Ash Is Purest White, will arrive in the U.S. courtesy of Cohen Media Group. The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, his latest film follows Zhao Tao’s character of Qiao on a decades-spanning journey. We’re pleased to premiere an exclusive clip, featuring Qiao under siege leading up to the film’s major turning point and a tour de force setpiece of filmmaking from the director.

In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”

See our exclusive clip below along with...

The director with the most insightful eye on contemporary China, Jia Zhangke is returning this spring with a new epic Ash Is Purest White. Following Zhao Tao’s character on a decades-spanning journey of crime, romance, and reflection, it’s one of the best films of 2019, and now Cohen Media Group has unveiled the new trailer.

In a rare A-grade review, Rory O’Connor said at Cannes, “There are few filmmakers with Jia’s ability to convey scales both physical (simply filming his actors walk past some soulless mega-structure or vast landscape) and existential (focusing on small shifts in his characters’ relationships as tectonic shifts seem to be taking place simultaneously in those same characters’ society).”

See the trailer and poster below and watch the director’s recent iPhone-shot short film here.

A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu Ash Is Purest White begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao...

Hidden Man is the third of actor-director Jiang Wen's comic action films set in the 1930s, after the spectacularly good (and spectacularity lucrative) Let the Bullets Fly (2010) and the wonderfully ambitious if wildly uneven Gone with the Bullets (2014). The new picture, set in 1937 “Peiping”—the era’s name for Beijing—on the cusp of Japan declaring war on a hobbled and splintered China, is on the surface a simple tale of revenge. The dashing American-educated doctor Li Tianran (Eddie Pang) returns to his country to kill the two men who, when he was a child, shot to death and set on fire his adoptive father and martial arts master, his step-sister and, so the killers thought, Tianran too. Sent abroad for his safety, Tianran has been training himself not just as a gynecologist but for vengeance as well, having been enlisted by a vague Sino-American espionage contingent—the Chinese part,...

Following its competition premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this month, Jia Zhangke’s female-centered crime/romance drama Ash is Purest White has its first Chinese trailer. Also known by its original title Jiang hu er nv, the film stars Zhao Tao as Qiao, a young dancer who falls in love with mobster and criminal Bin, played by Fan Liao. In order to protect Bin from oncoming assailants, Qiao lets off a barrage of gunfire and subsequently gets jailed for doing so. The film follows Qiao in her search for Bin after her release from prison, five years later.

Jia Zhangke and Zhao Tao are frequent collaborators, as the director-actress (and husband-wife) dyad has worked together dating back to 2000 with Platform. More recently they’ve teamed up for The Touch of Sin and Mountains May Depart. Praising their collaboration in his Cannes review for Ash is Purest White, Rory...

It should go without saying that, regardless of genre, period, or just about any other contributing factor, any new release from Jia Zhangke is something with which to grapple. Last year, the New York Times ranked the writer-director’s 2013 film A Touch of Sin as the 4th best film of the 21st Century thus far. Not bad, but I reckon few would even consider it his best — it might not even make some devotees’ top 5s.

When news trickled out that his latest would be based in the world of crime, you got the feeling that Jia was once again leaning towards the deathly serious, straight-faced allegories that Sin provided. What’s more, it was said that Ash is Purest White — as it has been titled for English-speaking audiences — would be his most expensive production to date and might even feature a sequence of martial arts. Just tell me where to sign.

A long and melancholy summation of better movies the brilliant Jia Zhangke has made before, “Ash Is Purest White” finds China’s most prominent filmmaker wistfully replaying the hits in order to further romanticize some of the fixations that have always dominated his work. The passage of time, the sweep of modernity, and the outlaw violence that can be traced back to the Cultural Revolution unsurprisingly come to define this fractured saga of a small-time gangster and the girl who was always by his side, as the writer-director spins an epic tale that never quite captures the poetry of its English title. It’s a loveless love story, told across three parts, five different camera types, and 17 years of change — it’s a movie that often feels like a mega-mix of Jia’s greatest hits, but one that rehashes them with precious little of the ineffable grace that make each...

Author: Competitions

To celebrate the release of acclaimed martial arts movie The Final Master from Cine Asia, we have an awesome kung fu DVD double bill up for grabs including Ip Man and Young Bruce Lee, to get you in the mood for action.

Don’t miss The Final Master making its long-awaited arrival in the UK! In 1930’s China, Wing Chun master Chen She (Fan Liao, Assembly, Chinese Zodiac), arrives in Tianjin, a city famous for martial arts. With plans to open his own kung fu school, he must first train a student to defeat eight of the city’s masters, legitimising himself as a teacher. But when he is caught up in local politics and an underworld power struggle, Chen finds himself at odds with dangerous people and will fight to protect what he holds most dear.

Written and directed by Xu Haofeng (The Grandmaster) and co-starring Jia Song (Shock Wave Tunnel,...

Attempting to explore more traditional terrain, writer/director Xu Haofeng decides to explore one of his own novellas for his third directorial outing after the acclaimed efforts ‘The Sword Identity’ and ‘Judge Archer.’ Employing a more recent stage for his period-set martial arts drama, ‘The Final Master’ or released under the original title ‘Shi Fu,’ allows him to go for a realistic touch to the martial arts.

Buy This Title

Desperate to open a new studio, martial arts master Chen Shi (Fan Liao, from “Black Coal, Thin Ice”) yearns to introduce Wing Chun, a relatively new martial arts style, into Chinese territories. When told by Grandmaster Zheng (Shih-Chieh King, from “Brotherhood of Blades”) that such a practice is not allowed, he and his wife Zhao Guohui (Jia Song, from “Red Cliff”) find a way of getting around the circumstances by signing a protegee and selecting Geng Yiangchen (Song Yang, from...

Adapting a script based on the life of the last Wing Chun master’s quest to pass down his art in pre-wwii China, Xu Haofeng (the writer of “The Grandmaster) decided to use an original style of narrative in order to separate his film from the plethora of similar productions coming out of Hong Kong at the moment. Let us find out if he succeeded.

“The Final Master” is part of the Asian selection at Fantasia International Film Festival

Wing Chun grandmaster Chen is the last practitioner of the art after his master died. As he tries to keep Wing Chun alive, he also tries to fulfill his master’s dream, to open a dojo in Tianjin, the “capital” of the martial worlds in the 1930’s Shanghai. In his mission, he has the help of Master Zheng, a board member of the Tianjin Martial Art’s Committee, who is considered...

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has unveiled its 2015 line-up which includes films representing 54 countries, 23 world premieres and 53 U.S. premieres. The U.S. premiere of Niki Caro’s McFarland USA will close out the 30th fest. Based on the 1987 true story and starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello, the film follows novice runners from McFarland, an economically challenged town in California’s farm-rich Central Valley, as they give their all to build a cross-country team under the direction of Coach Jim White (Costner), a newcomer to their predominantly Latino high school. The unlikely band of runners overcomes the odds to forge not only a championship cross-country team but an enduring legacy as well.

The festival runs from January 27-February 7.

Below is the list of World and U.S. Premiere films followed by the list of titles by sidebar categories.

World Premieres

A Better You, USA

Directed by Matt Walsh

Cast: Brian Huskey,...

A self-acknowledged "showcase for Academy Award frontrunners," the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is often overlooked for the actual films that earn it festival status. An amalgamation of international discoveries and ’merica’s circuit highlights, the Sbiff curates a week of best-of-the-best to pair with their star-praising. The 2015 edition offers another expansive selection, bookended by two films that aren’t on any radars just yet. Sbiff will open with "Desert Dancer," producer Richard Raymond’s directorial debut. Starring Reece Ritchie and Frieda Pinto, the drama follows a group of friends who wave off the harsh political climate of Iran’s 2009 presidential election in favor of forming a dance team, picking up moves from Michael Jackson, Gene Kelly and Rudolf Nureyev thanks to the magic of YouTube. The festival will close with "McFarland, USA," starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello. Telling the 1987 true story of a Latino high school’s underdog cross-country team,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has now completed its 2014 competition film lineup, with 18 world premieres and three feature debuts as part of the program. As with the upcoming Sundance, Berlin has added Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making "Boyhood," starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, to its final lineup. Christophe Gans' "Beauty and the Beast," starring Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux, has also been added. Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is set to open the fest, with George Clooney's "Monuments Men" playing out of competition. The first five titles of the competition lineup are here. Here are the newly added titles: “Bai Ri Yan Huo” (Black Coal, Thin Ice)ChinaBy Yinan Diao (“Night Train,” “Uniform”)With Fan Liao, Lun Mei Gwei, Xuebing WangWorld premiere “Boyhood” (U.S.)By Richard Linklater (“Before Midnight,” “Me & Orson Welles”)With Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater.International premiere “Chiisai...

The 64th Berlin International Film Festival is now complete. Twenty of the 23 films in the Competition programme will be vying for the Golden Bear and Silver Bears, including new additions from directors Richard Linklater, Yinan Diao, Hans Petter Moland, Christophe Gans, Feo Aladag and Rachid Bouchareb. The program includes 18 world premieres and three feature debuts. The awards will take place at the Berlinale Palast on Saturday, February 15, 2014, with a jury led by James Schamus deciding the winners. The event will close with a screening of the winner of the Golden Bear. The following films complete the Competition programme: Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) People’s Republic of China By Yinan Diao (Night Train, Uniform) With Fan Liao, Lun Mei Gwei, Xuebing Wang World premiere Boyhood USA By Richard Linklater (Before Midnight, Me & Orson Welles) With Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater International...

High-profile titles, including the latest from Christophe Gans (Beauty and the Beast), Richard Linklater (Boyhood), Yamada Yoji (The Little House), and Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance) have been added to the lineup for the rapidly-approaching Berlin International Film Festival. Set to begin February 6 with the opening night presentations of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel and George Clooney's Monuments Men, the festival will feature 23 films in the competition section, of which 18 are world premieres. (Linklater's film will debut at Sundance.) Here are the latest additions to the lineup: Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) China By Yinan Diao ("Night Train," "Uniform") With Fan Liao, Lun Mei Gwei, Xuebing Wang World premiere Boyhood (U.S.) By Richard Linklater ("Before Midnight,"...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Joining the titles already announced—including films by Alain Resnais and Dominik Graf—the following films complete the lineup for the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival's Competition section.

Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice)

People’s Republic of China

By Yinan Diao (Night Train, Uniform)

With Fan Liao, Lun Mei Gwei, Xuebing Wang

World premiere

Boyhood

USA

By Richard Linklater (Before Midnight, Me & Orson Welles)

With Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater

International premiere

Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House)

Japan

By Yoji Yamada (Tokyo Family, About Her Brother)

With Takako Matsu, Haru Kuroki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Chieko Baisho

International premiere

Historia del miedo (History of Fear)

Argentina / Uruguay / Germany / France

By Benjamin Naishtat - feature debut

With Jonathan Da Rosa, Claudia Cantero, Mirella Pascual, Cesar Bordon, Tatiana Gimenez

World premiere

Jack

Germany

By Edward Berger

With Ivo Pietzcker, Georg Arms, Luise Heyer, Vincent Redetzki, Jacob Matschenz,...

Richard Linklater’s Boyhood to compete for the Golden Bear; Beauty and the Beast, starring Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux, to play out of competition.

The 64th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16) has added 15 titles to its Competition programme, completing the line-up of 23 films - of which 20 will vye for the Golden Bear and Silver Bears.

The programme includes 18 world premieres and three feature debuts.

The line-up includes the international premiere of Boyhood, from Before Midnight director Richard Linklater. The film, which will premiere at Sundance, was shot over short periods from 2002 to 2013 and covers 12 years in the life of a family, featuring Mason and his sister Samantha. Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater star.

World premieres include In Order of Disappearance, directed by Hans Petter Moland, which stars Stellan Skarsgård as a snow plough driver whose son’s sudden death puts him in the middle of a drug war between theNorwegian mafia and the...