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Burt Lancaster could be just about anything you needed him to be — except small. He was not towering at 6'1", but he sure made it look that way on screen. Whether smiling or glowering, good natured or pure evil, there was a formidable bearing to Lancaster. But he did not lumber. God no, he was as graceful as a circus acrobat because, well, he was one. How dare a man so sturdy be so damn limber. And golden. And beautiful.

Lancaster's acting career was as remarkable as his absurdly perfect physicality. He made his motion picture debut in a stone-cold classic, and was one of the most popular movie stars on the planet for well over a decade. Lancaster worked too frequently to not slip up on occasion, but he generally exhibited great taste, particularly as a producer. His partnership with Harold Hecht (and later James Hill) yielded three Best...

Tallinn, Estonia — Industry @ Tallinn & Baltic Event, one of the leading industry events in Northern Europe, closed Nov. 22 with an awards ceremony where the focus country Germany dominated the list of 15 winning projects at various stages of development or post-production, on top of two accolades to promising producers.

For the first time, the public was invited to cast their vote for each category, which gave more chances of a larger number of projects standing out at the market.

Among the most coveted accolades, the €20,000 Eurimages Co-Production Development Award from the Baltic Event Co-Production Market was handed out to the German-Bulgarian project “The Worker” helmed by Bulgarian-born Eliza Petkova, whose debut feature “Zhaleika” earned a special mention at the 66th Berlinale.

The drama about Roma Bulgarian Gorgi, pushed into a life of lies and deceit in Berlin to try to make ends meet and maintain his family in a Bulgarian village, was...

It is a deceptively simple premise for a two-hour feature film. A married couple who had planned their retirement in a B&b are, due to dire financial circumstances and bum luck, forced out of their home at a point that is, on the surface at least, completely devastating. With their kids now off at school, they make the decision to pack up what they can in their backpacks and take off on the Salt Path, a 630-mile stretch from Dorset to Somerset on the Southwestern English Coast. To make matters worse, the husband has just been diagnosed with a terminal neurodegenerative disease, but they are bound and determined to complete this adventure, perhaps the last of their lives because they have no other choice.

Oh, and it is a 100% true story.

Exquisitely directed by four-time Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott with a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (She Said) based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, The Salt Path is an inspiring story of love and resilience in a situation that might otherwise break most people, especially a couple entering their later years with little hope against an unforgiving system. This is certainly not the first film based on someone setting out on an ambitious walk for various personal reasons. Martin Sheen starred as a man tackling El Camino de Santiago trail in 2010’s spiritual The Way; Reese Witherspoon played the depressed Cheryl Strayed in Wild, the 2014 true story of her 1100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail; and Mark Wahlberg starred in another true story, 2020’s Joe Bell, about a father who walks across America in protest of the bullying of his son.

All of these films, and other similar stories of determination against all odds, were admirable attempts but not always successful movies as sometimes dramatizing the journey can be a little repetitive. Where Elliott succeeds with a fine Lenkiewicz template, is getting us instantly engaged in the travails of Ray (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs), a couple who could be you or me as life hits them hard in the gut and the Salt Path becomes somehow a cure, a spiritual redemption however temporary, to set them on a new path (literally and figuratively) in life. Is it an adventure? Is it insanity or an existential mid-life crisis? In some ways, it is reminiscent of the premise of John Cheever’s The Swimmer and its film adaptation, in which Burt Lancaster swam from one neighbor’s pool to another, encountering various people along the way. But moreover, it is the tale of these two born to come together to experience life together, no matter how hard that gets.

After unreasonably being evicted from their B&b, having their bank account dried up due to legal expenses and losing their farm, this likable couple decides to fullfil a dream and live off the land as it were by embarking with just chump change on an ambitious walk covering 630 breathtaking miles, even as Moth has had a pretty devastating diagnosis. This might stop most people in their tracks, but in this case only sets this couple off in theirs.

The story from this point on becomes episodic as they make their way, stopping at various points and towns, interacting with the locals and relatives, bleeding an Atm dry just for enough to get food, and even for Ray getting a job shearing sheep. Nothing hugely life-threatening happens along the way, no sudden tidal wave or earthquakes, none of the usual movie tropes, but rather a love story of two people making the most of where life has brought them to this point. Of course to make this work, you need actors of the extraordinary grace and talent of Anderson and Isaacs who are entirely believable as this pair staring down nature as an antidote to the cards life has dealt. Both are excellent in essentially a two-hander, although they get support along the way from various people they meet or stay with.

With Helene Louvart’s excellent cinematography a real plus, The Salt Path is a cinematic journey worth taking. It had its world premiere Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival. Producers are Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Lloyd Levin and Beatriz Levin.

Title: The Salt Path

Festival: Toronto

Director: Marianne Elliott

Screenwriter: Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Cast: Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, James Lance, Hermione Norris, Megan Placito

Sales agents: Rocket Science, Black Bear

Running time: 1 hr 55 min...

There’s no point in hiring Nicolas Cage if you’re not going to let him rip with a wackadoodle, Ott performance, and he duly delivers in the sly psychological thriller The Surfer. Calibrating his character’s descent into mental and physical disarray so that it happens by evenly distributed degrees, Cage is in only moderately demented form overall here. That suits director Lorcan Finnegan (Without Name, Vivarium) and screenwriter Thomas Martin’s ambitions to call back to and yet also spoof vintage Australian New Wave films like Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), dreamtime stories about alienated outsiders.

Toxic masculinity, the Big Bad de nos jours, also seems to be on their mind although the performances and cinematic quirks (zooms, jump cuts, all that jazz) are so hammy and gestural there’s nothing subtle about the critique. But that’s what makes it fun.

Unfolding largely on a beach and its...

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan – already behind “Vivarium” – returns to Cannes with “The Surfer.” Starring Nicolas Cage, it follows a man who just wants to surf on a beach next to his old childhood home in Australia. But he is not a local anymore and he will have to fight for it – or lose his mind.

Nic’s character actually references “surfing as a metaphor for life.” Why did you want to explore – and maybe also mock – this philosophy?

I met Thomas Martin, who wrote the film, years ago. We wanted to do something together and then he mentioned “The Surfer.” It was about this one man, trying to deal with who he thinks he is and what he actually wants over the course of five days. It felt very contained, challenging and appealing to me as a filmmaker.

At the beginning of the film, The Surfer says: “You either surf,...

With its list of May 2024 releases, Amazon Prime Video is giving us the kindest gift of all: cougar Anne Hathaway.

May 2 sees the premiere of The Idea of You, a romantic-comedy that features Hathaway as a 40-year-old mom finding romance with a 24-year-old boy band singer (Nicholas Galitzine). Having saved the medium of film forever, Prime Video is celebrating with some big time library titles this month as well. American Fiction and BlacKkKlansman arrive on May 14 and will be followed by Creed and Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story on May 16.

For its TV offerings, Prime is leading off with Outer Range season 2 on May 16. This James Brolin sci-fi Western will continue the mysteries of the strange happenings on Thanos’ ranch. Reality TV fans will be able to enjoy the Daniel Tosh-hosted competition series The Goat on May 9.

Here’s everything coming to Prime Video and Freevee in April – Amazon...

While each year brings a few films here and there to make one long for Hollywood’s return to an era of producing quality mid-budget movies not strictly for a four-quadrant demographic, it seemed the last gasp of such a time came when Peter Weir stepped away from filmmaking. The Master and Commander, The Truman Show, and Dead Poets Society director last released a film in 2010 with The Way Back and now has confirmed rumors he’s retired from filmmaking

“Why did I stop directing? Because, quite simply, I have no more energy,” the 79-year-old Australian director told the audience as part of a recent Paris retrospective at Festival de la Cinémathèque. “I’ve stopped filmmaking in 2020. It was time for me. I felt I want to leave the gambling table, so I no longer direct,” he added, although also touched on some potential reunions that were in discussions. “But before that,...

A luxury item that seemingly every warm-weather homeowner covets, the swimming pool has somehow become troubled waters for a wide range of movie and TV characters. In The Swimmer, it’s a symbol of personal decay for Burt Lancaster’s alcoholic suburbanite. In the simply-titled Swimming Pool it’s the stuff of Franco-British erotic intrigue. And in Stranger Things, there’s all manner of nastiness lurking beneath the seemingly placid chlorinated surface. In short, there are – ahem – depths to the onscreen pool party, more murky than shimmering.

Night Swim, the...

The 6th edition of the El Gouna Film Festival (Gff) has wrapped with a feeling of quiet triumph. The glitz and celebrities were largely absent, although Egyptian star Yousra and legendary French actor Christophe Lambert both appeared at In Conversation events. But in a way, this allowed festival organizers to better focus on the core values which they wish to take forward.

For artistic director Marianne Khoury, the mission was clear, though the challenges were extraordinary, even before the horrific attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. “I joined in June, so it was quite a crazy summer where we’re working almost every day. Then on the 10th October, we decided to postpone. So it was very overwhelming. Since then, we were on hold every day. We wanted this edition to take place before the year end.”

Better late than never; better small than not at all

With the 2022 edition already having been canceled,...

When Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” came out in 2008, Zac Efron was two movies deep into the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” franchise, in which he played singing, dancing basketball phenom Troy Bolton. He’d been the swoony romantic lead in the movie musical “Hairspray,” opposite John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, was shortly to play opposite Matthew Perry in “17 Again,” and had pulled his T-shirt up on the cover of Rolling Stone under the headline “The New American Heartthrob.” At 21, Efron might have seemed like the kind of actor who was as likely to watch footage of the moon landing and decide to become an astronaut as he was to take inspiration from Mickey Rourke’s grizzled, broken-down performance.

And yet. “That film impacted me in a really specific way,” he recalls over lunch in Los Angeles. “I was watching it with my dad, and I remember looking at him in that moment,...

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

Janet Landgard, who starred in 1968’s “The Swimmer” alongside Burt Lancaster and played Paul Petersen’s love interest for three seasons on “The Donna Reed Show,” has died. She was 75.

Petersen shared the news of co-star Landgard’s death on Facebook, noting that cancer “took her life earlier this week.” He added that Landgard was “the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had on the last three years of ‘The Donna Reed Show.’ Janet was gorgeous, inside and out… We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

Landgard was born on Dec. 2, 1947, in Pasadena, Calif. She made her onscreen debut in 1963 on “The Donna Reed Show,” playing a girl named Sabrina in one episode of the sitcom’s fifth season. She also guested on ABC’s “My Three Sons” that year.

Landgard returned to portray Jeff’s (Petersen) girlfriend Karen on 11 episodes of “The Donna Reed Show...

Janet Landgard, who played Paul Petersen’s love interest for three seasons on The Donna Reed Show and later costarred with Burt Lancaster in film drama The Swimmer, died Nov. 6 at age 75 of brain cancer, according to several friends on social media.

On Facebook, actor Petersen called her “The best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence. We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

Born on Dec. 2, 1947, Landgard was raised in Pasadena and worked for the William Adrian Modeling Agency. She made her onscreen debut in 1963 on The Donna Reed Show while still in high school, playing a girl named Sabrina on a fifth-season episode. She also appeared on ABC’s My Three Sons that year.

That led to a recurring role as Petersen’s girlfriend, Karen,...

Janet Landgard, who starred in “The Donna Reed Show” and “The Swimmer,” has died at the age of 75 shortly after a fatal brain cancer diagnosis.

Actor Paul Petersen, who she played opposite of on “Donna Reed,” posted about Landgard’s death on Facebook.

“She never told me how gravely ill she was from the cancer that took her life earlier this week,” Petersen wrote of Langard. “Typical behavior from the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had on the last three years of ‘The Donna Reed Show.'”

“Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence,” he continued. “‘Easy on the eyes’ doesn’t begin to describe her. We were always close no matter the time or distance. She gave me a share in her racehorse, Pioneer Prince, who didn’t run well in his last race.

Janet Landgard, who accompanied Burt Lancaster on a portion of his bizarre tour of backyard swimming pools in the acclaimed 1968 drama The Swimmer, has died. She was 75.

Landgard died this week after a very brief bout with brain cancer, actor Paul Petersen told The Hollywood Reporter. She recurred as his love interest on the final three seasons of the ABC family comedy The Donna Reed Show.

On Facebook, Petersen called her “the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence. We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

In Columbia Pictures’ The Swimmer — directed by Frank Perry and adapted by his then-wife, Eleanor Perry, from a John Cheever short story in The New Yorker — Landgard was memorable as Julie Ann Hooper, who used to babysit Ned Merrill’s...

Rose Gregorio, who received a Tony nomination for her performance as the browbeaten daughter of Geraldine Fitzgerald’s declining old woman in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Shadow Box, has died. She was 97.

Gregorio died Aug. 17 of natural causes in her Greenwich Village home, her nephew Robert Grosbard told The Hollywood Reporter.

Gregorio was married to Belgium-born stage and film director Ulu Grosbard from 1965 until his death in 2012, and she appeared for him as the ex-wife of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971); as a local madam in True Confessions (1981); and as the mother of Treat Williams’ character in The Deep End of the Ocean (1999).

On television, she had a recurring role on NBC’s ER as Nurse Carol Hathaway’s (Julianna Margulies) mom from 1996-99.

Gregorio also landed a Drama Desk nom and a Clarence Derwent...

Two years after his previous effort, “Three Floors” opened with a high-profile belly flop, festival-stalwart Nanni Moretti returns to Cannes with “A Brighter Tomorrow,” a comeback of sorts that also airs a list of grievances and could serve – should need arise – as a closing statement.

Not that it likely will. Funny and endearing in some places, and typically grumpy and old-fashioned in others, “A Brighter Tomorrow” should, at very least, keep Moretti far from director’s jail for years to come. And if the sheer existence of this title proves he wasn’t detained for very long, Moretti was very clearly shook by the experience, and very clearly used this follow-up to work through those anxieties.

As in his earlier beloved films “Dear Diary” and “April,” Moretti plays a version of himself, holding the screen as Giovanni (guess what Nanni’s short for), a Roman director about to shoot an...

Actress Rhea Seehorn discusses a few of her favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Swimmer (1968)

Linoleum (2023)

Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992)

Short Cuts (1993)

Lars And The Real Girl (2007)

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Breaking The Waves (1996)

Sound Of Metal (2020)

Starman (1984)

The Worst Person In The World (2021)

Beatriz At Dinner (2017)

Frida (2002)

The Shape Of Water (2017)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

The Lobster (2015)

Delicatessen (1992)

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

The Favourite (2018)

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

Birdman (2014)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Stepford Wives (2004)

Triangle Of Sadness (2022)

Get Out (2017)

Nope (2022)

Brazil (1985)

Safe (1995)

Withnail & I (1987)

The Fisher King (1991)

Regarding Henry (1990)

Lost in La Mancha (2002)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote...

The Swimmer Photo: Peccadillo Pictures

The story of a young professional athlete facing tremendous pressures as he trains in the hope of gaining an Olympic opportunity, The Swimmer was a hit with viewers when it screened at BFI Flare earlier this year, and it’s now screening in selected cinemas across the UK. It’s directed by Adam Kalderon and based on his own experience as a young gay man with a promising sporting career. The day after the Flare screening, Adam and I found a moment to discuss it and to talk about the unlikely career path which led him to the festival.

“I was a professional swimmer since I was nine years old until I was 21,” he tells me. “When I was 17, I left home to [go to] the special facility for young athletes. The film is based on my personal experience in this facility. I wanted to with this.

Revolution Films makes distribution debut with ‘Eleven Days In May’.

Disney opens its first theatrical release in almost three months this weekend: Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which will look to replicate Marvel success at the UK-Ireland box office.

The fifth title in ‘Phase Four’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the 28th overall, Multiverse will start in 685 locations, having opened on Thursday.

That number is the widest release in the series, two ahead of Avengers: Endgame from 2019. That film took a £31.4m opening weekend, still the record in the UK and Ireland by a comfortable margin...

The latest in the Downton saga, Universal’s “Downton Abbey: A New Era” topped the U.K. and Ireland box office with £3.07 million (3.8 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.

Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” continued its golden run with £1.3 million in second place, in its fifth weekend, and now has a total of £21.8 million. Another Paramount release, “The Lost City,” collected £1.2 million for third position in its third weekend for a total of £7.4 million.

Warner Bros.’ “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore” took £1.1 million for fourth place in its fourth weekend for a total of £18.3 million.

Rounding off the top five was Universal’s “The Bad Guys” with £723,039 in its fifth weekend for a total of £10.1 million.

Dreamz Entertainment’s Telugu-language “Acharya,” starring popular Indian actors Chiranjeevi and Ram Charan was the lone debut with £92,624 in 10th place.

The massive release this weekend is Disney’s “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness,...

Get ready to get your Q on!

The 15th Annual QFest St. Louis — presented by Cinema St. Louis (Csl) — will take place from April 29-May 5 at the Galleria 6 Cinemas, with a selection of programs also available online. The online programs can be streamed at any time during the festival’s dates.

The St. Louis-based LGBTQ film festival, QFest will present an eclectic array of 35 films from 13 countries. The participating filmmakers represent a wide variety of voices in contemporary queer world cinema. The mission of the film festival is to use the art of contemporary gay cinema to spotlight the lives of LGBTQ people and to celebrate queer culture.

The fest is especially pleased to host the St. Louis premiere of “The Depths,” a rarely seen 2001 work by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and a reprise from Sliff of Sebastian Meiser’s prison drama “Great Freedom.” Another highlight is this year’s Q Classic,...

Strand Releasing has acquired U.S. rights to Georgis Grigorakis’ feature debut “Digger,” Greece’s official entry for the Oscars’ international feature film race.

Set in the rich forests of Northern Greece, “Digger” is a modern-day psychological Western starring Vangelis Mourikis as an iconoclastic farmer at war against the encroachments of a ravenous industry and the demons of his past. When his estranged son appears on his doorstep, with a motorcycle and a grudge, nature itself will shake at their clash.

Grigorakis wrote the film, which was produced by Athens-based banner Haos Film. “Digger” had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Cicae prize and went on to have a successful career in festivals, including Sarajevo, Thessaloniki and Philadelphia, and won several awards at the Hellenic Film Academy Awards. The movie has also had a strong box office run in Greece.

”We’re thrilled to...

The 25th edition of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival is about to kick off, and between 12-28 of November the audience will have the oportunity to watch a great number of films from Asia, strewn across festival’s various program sections, including all competition segments. We went through the complete program and counted no more or less than 69 films from the broader Asian region.

Quite surprising is the amount of competition titles in the main selection, with three world premieres, four international. Lu ZHang’s “Yanagawa” will have its European premiere at PÖFF.

Yerzhanov returns to Tallinn a year after he presented two films at the festival, the main competition title “Ulbolsyn” about a woman who comes to a Kazhak village to “steer trouble”, and the oddball comedy “Yellow Cat” screened in the Current Waves program. Kirill Sokolov is also back two years after the premiere of his critically acclaimed...

As 2021 mercifully winds down, the Criterion Channel have a (November) lineup that marks one of their most diverse selections in some time—films by the new masters Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Garrett Bradley, Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen (one of 2020’s best films) couched in a fantastic retrospective, and Criterion editions of old favorites.

Fourteen is featured in “Between Us Girls: Bonds Between Women,” which also includes Céline and Julie, The Virgin Suicides, and Yvonne Rainer’s Privilege. Of equal note are Criterion editions for Ghost World, Night of the Hunter, and (just in time for del Toro’s spin) Nightmare Alley—all stacked releases in their own right.

See the full list of October titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

300 Nassau, Marina Lameiro, 2015

5 Card Stud, Henry Hathaway, 1968

Alone, Garrett Bradley, 2017

Álvaro, Daniel Wilson, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandra Lazarowich, and Chloe Zimmerman, 2015

America, Garrett Bradley, 2019

Angel Face, Otto Preminger, 1953

Angels Wear White,...

Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has acquired “No Looking Back,” a dark action film with a dysfunctional family at its core in which three generations of warring women face-off. The film world premiered at Kinotavr – Open Russian Film Festival in September and makes its international premiere at Tallinn Black Nights Intl. Film Festival in November in the main competition section.

The film is director Kirill Sokolov’s follow-up to black comedy “Why Don’t You Just Die!,” which competed at Sitges and closed multiple deals worldwide, marking out Sokolov as an up-and-coming auteur.

The film centers on Olga, a troubled woman who has just been released from prison and been reunited with her 10-year-old daughter, Masha. Masha has been in the care of Olga’s overbearing mother, Vera. The tempestuous relationship between Olga and Vera is instantaneously reignited, resulting in a violent altercation. This prompts Olga to take off with Masha in...

The Swimmer is based on director Adam Kalderon’s own experiences.

Berlin-based M-Appeal has sold Adam Kalderon’s Israeli feature The Swimmer, about the sexual awakening of a young gay man, to North America (Strand Releasing), France (Outplay Films), and the UK & Ireland (Peccadillo Pictures).

Set in a summer training camp where young athletes compete to qualify for the Olympics, the film follows one young sportsman coming to terms with his sexuality, despite the discriminatory tendencies of the world in which he is competing. His drive to win is threatened by his burgeoning sexual desires.

The Swimmer is based on...

A total of 46 films and 27 series will be showcased at the online-only event.

Lukas Dhont’s second feature Close and Olga Lucovnicova’s Last Letters From My Grandma are among the 46 feature and 27 series projects to be showcased at Re>Connext, the annual showcase for films and TV series made in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium.

Close is filmmaker Dhont’s follow-up to Girl, which won the Camera d’Or following its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2018. Last year, the project was pitched at Re>Connext under the title The Invisible.

For this edition, drama Close returns as a work in progress,...

It comes as no surprise that for her feature directorial debut Maggie Gyllenhaal would choose the challenging job of adapting Italian author Elena Ferrante’s searingly compact novel The Lost Daughter. The film just made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and next heads to Telluride this weekend.

The Last Daughter centers on the kind of strong but complicated and even haunted character Gyllenhaal has often drifted to in her own acting choices, and by landing Olivia Colman to play a woman alone on a seaside vacation experiencing moments of reckoning and dark memories for a life-altering choice made decades earlier, she has crafted a memorable first film that takes its own liberties with the book (the location is moved from Italy to Greece for starters) but is more importantly faithful in presenting a study of motherhood in all its raw complexity. It may be tough going for some audiences to accept,...

The Jerusalem Film Festival has named the winners from its various competition strands this year, with Juho Kuosmanen’s Finnish drama Compartment No. 6 winning Best Film in the international competition.

“Compartment No. 6 is a cross-cultural road movie – entertaining, clever, and remarkably endearing. This is free cinema, released from confinements, where an entire world exists within a cramped train car and where impossible connections are forged between people from different borders and cultures,” said the jury, which was comprised of Ari Folman, Nili Feller and Shai Goldman. A special mention was also given to Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee.

Compartment No. 6 previously shared the Grand Prix in Cannes Competition with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero.

Elsewhere, in Jerusalem’s First Feature Competition, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta won the Gwff Award for Best First Feature.

In the the Spirit of Freedom Competition, the Cummings Award for best Feature Film went to...

Due to its persistent on-screen presence, the swimming pool can be taken for granted; but beneath the surface it is cinema’s Jungian friend, representing secrets lying underneath. It exudes glamour and danger, shifting beyond conscious realms. It is a key to transformation, coming of age tales and renewed relationships. It is a status symbol and whether or not the pool is intact says a lot about the mood of the film and the state of its characters. Away from states of intensity, the swimming pool emerges on screen as a signifier of a time to unwind and to forget life past the poolside. The films featured in this mix show how the pool alludes mysterious symbolism and sexual awakening; murder, lust, and love brush shoulders as sun kissed babes in bikinis whisper sweet truths or uncover deadly secrets (such as the strange swimming pool activities in Three Women or...

13 feature-length films will participate in the two Israeli Film Competitions.

Ari Folman’s animated title Where Is Anne Frank will open the 38th Jerusalem Film Festival (August 24-September 4), which has also selected 13 feature films for its two Israeli Film Competitions.

Where Is Anne Frank premiered as an out of competition title at Cannes last month. It follows the imaginary friend to whom Second World War diarist Anne Frank dedicated her writing, as she embarks on a journey across Europe to find Anne, who she believes is still alive.

Wild Bunch holds worldwide sales rights on the title; it will play...

Everyone expressed pleasure at being back at a physical event.

As the Cannes Film Festival moves into its last two days, international attendees reflected on a pandemic-era event that has required them to grapple with the logistics of 48-hourly Covid-19 tests, rumours of a virus cluster in the early days of the festival and concerns over the lack of mask-wearing, which was tightened up as the event progressed.

Sales agents expressed mixed views on how much business has been done but all said they were happy to be back. Those representing titles in official selection were generally upbeat, suggesting the...

Berlin-based distributor Salzgeber has bought Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Benelux rights to Adam Kalderon’s Israeli titleThe Swimmer from M-Appeal. The completed film is screening in the Cannes market.

Set in a summer training camp where young athletes compete to qualify for the Olympics, The Swimmer follows a sportsman as he learns how to accept and love himself despite the discriminative tendencies of the high-performance sports environment against LGBTQ sportspeoople.

Salzgeber has a traditional focus on queer and documentary cinema and has handled titles such as And Then We Danced by Levan Akin and No Hard Feelings by Faraz Shariat.

Milica Tomović has directed the Serbian comedy drama.

Modern Films has bought UK and Ireland rights to Milica Tomović’s Seriban comedy drama Celts from Germany’s M-Appeal. The film has also sold to Belas Artes Group for Brazil.

Celts was a premiere earlier this year in the Berlinale Panorama. It is set in war-torn Belgrade in the early 1990s and is the story of a woman who decides to discover what more life has to offer as she contemplates the drunken guests and inattentive husband at a family party. The cast is led by Dubravka Duda Kovjanić, Stefan Trifunović and Katarina Dimić.

Lebanese actresses and real-life sisters, Manal and Nathalie Issa have been cast to play real-life sisters Yusra and Sarah Mardini in Netflix and Working Title’s new drama The Swimmer.

The film, which Welsh/Egyptian filmmaker Sally El Hosaini (My Brother the Devil) is directing, traces the incredible journey of the Mardini sisters who escaped war-torn Syria, dragging a dinghy of refugees to safety across the Aegean Sea, and made it all the way to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

El Hosaini co-wrote the script to The Swimmers with Enola Holmes scribe Jack Thorne. The Swimmers is set to begin production this week in the ...

Lebanese actresses and real-life sisters, Manal and Nathalie Issa have been cast to play real-life sisters Yusra and Sarah Mardini in Netflix and Working Title’s new drama The Swimmer.

The film, which Welsh/Egyptian filmmaker Sally El Hosaini (My Brother the Devil) is directing, traces the incredible journey of the Mardini sisters who escaped war-torn Syria, dragging a dinghy of refugees to safety across the Aegean Sea, and made it all the way to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

El Hosaini co-wrote the script to The Swimmers with Enola Holmes scribe Jack Thorne. The Swimmers is set to begin production this week in the ...

A crippling year for theatrical exhibition, the pandemic-forced shutdowns meant most films weren’t available for viewing in their ideal presentation. However, through the invention and proliferation of Virtual Cinemas as well as festivals going online, it meant more people could get access to films they otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do so for some time. And with nearly all blockbusters delayed to 2021 or beyond, it meant the more nimble ecosystem of independent and foreign film got the spotlight. Which is to say, there were a few bright points in an otherwise bleak cinematic landscape. So, as we look to hopefully a more promising year, it’s my hope exhibition can survive alongside this more accessible virtual world.

Looking back at the 2020 new releases, there’s a number of films that narrowly missed my top 15, including Dick Johnson Is Dead, The Assistant, Bacurau, Boys State, Minari, Mangrove,...

Cav and Grindhouse Releasing’s January 2021 Release of The Swimmer Deluxe Edition – With Bonus CD soundtrack album by Marvin Hamlisch! The Swimmer – Deluxe Edition 1 Blu-ray disc + 1 DVD disc + 1 CD disc Label: Grindhouse Releasing Preorder: 1/12/21 Release: 1/26/21 Msrp: $44.95 Upc: 797679001826 Catalog #: BOS018 MPAA Rating: PG Genre: Drama Color, 95 minutes in English with French and …

The post Cav and Grindhouse Releasing’s January 2021 Release of The Swimmer Deluxe Edition – With Bonus CD soundtrack album by Marvin Hamlisch! appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Re>Connext is the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image.

The first footage from Netflix drama Soil, directed by Bad Boys For Life duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is to be presented at Re>Connext, the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image.

It is one of 26 upcoming television projects selected for the event, which serves as an export platform for film and TV drama made in Flanders and will run online from October 5-31. The physical showcase has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Scroll down for full list of projects

Soil,...

What at first seems like an ordinary online dating experience spirals into a stolen identity crisis and increasing paranoia for a reclusive man (Lukas Haas) in the new thriller Browse, and with the film out now on VOD from FilmRise, we caught up with director Mike Testin to discuss the film's psychological thrills, utilization of modern-day technology, and working with a cast that includes Haas and Jocelin Donahue.

Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us, and congratulations on Browse! When did you first read Mario Carvalhal’s screenplay for Browse, and what made you want to bring it to life on screen?

Mike Testin: Thank you! I first read Mario’s script about three months before we went into production. The guys at Boulderlight sent it to me knowing it aligned well with my sensibilities. I love the subjective psycho thriller/paranoia movies of the late ’60s,...

The star, Alexandra Daddario, the writer, Alan Trezza, and the director, Marc Meyers, of the terrific new film We Summon The Darkness walk us through some of their favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

We Summon The Darkness (2020)

Burying The Ex (2015)

The Little Mermaid (1989)

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

American Beauty (1999)

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

Ghostbusters (1984)

The Sound of Music (1965)

L.A. Story (1991)

Ghost Dad (1990)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

Roxanne (1987)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

The Godfather Part III (1990)

Fargo (1996)

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Psycho (1960)

Psycho (1998)

Defending Your Life (1991)

Modern Romance (1981)

The Jerk (1979)

Jaws (1975)

Notting Hill (1999)

Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

Love Actually (2003)

Marley & Me (2008)

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Raging Bull (1980)

Mandy (2018)

Heathers (1988)

Ed Wood (1994)

Hellzapoppin’ (1941)

Fletch (1985)

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Batman Returns (1992)

Warlock (1989)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Star Wars (1977)

Sixteen Candles (1984)

The Swimmer (1968)

Sherman’s March (1985)

Amadeus (1984)

Amarcord (1974)

Hugo Pool (1997)

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills...

3-D Blu-ray isn’t going away, even as the equipment to show it becomes hard to find — and the 3-D Film Archive keeps reviving vintage features and getting them shown in special venues and on Blu-ray. This second Rarities disc gives us some interesting odd items, including a pleasing gallery of vintage 3-D ‘Realist’ stills, and an entire feature starring Cesar Romero and Katy Jurado, the first película de tercera dimensión filmed in Mexico.

3-D Rarities II

3-D Blu-ray

Flicker Alley

1941-1983 / B&w + Color / 1:37 Academy / 153 min. / Restored by 3-D Film Archive / Street Date April 7, 2020 / 39.95

Voices: Hillary Hess, Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, Mike Ballew.

Digital Image Restoration: Thad Komorowski

3-D Restoration Greg Kintz

Associate Producer Jack Theakston

Produced by Bob Furmanek

The excellent Blu-ray 3-D video format is going strong despite the fact that new domestic hardware no longer supports it. Europe is the place to go for newer 3-D Hollywood features,...

A sort of “After Hours” update with a lot more drugs and time ellipses, “The Wave” throws Justin Long down a rabbit’s hole of sometimes hallucinatory, sometimes mortal peril when his button-down protagonist makes the mistake of celebrating a career breakthrough a little too adventurously. This surreal comedy from debuting feature director Gille Klabin and writer Carl W. Lucas offers a colorfully diverting ride that invokes the specter of everything from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” to “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

What it doesn’t quite have is the singularity of vision those and other movies had in putting their protagonists through some mind-expanding changes, whether induced psychedelically or supernaturally. This fever dream feels more derivative than distinctive, entertaining and eventful as it is. Still, it’s a well-cast, well-crafted stab at something offbeat that should find a modest but appreciative viewership in limited theatrical release (simultaneous with VOD launch) on Jan.

Netflix may get most of the attention, but it’s hardly a one-stop shop for cinephiles who are looking to stream essential classic and contemporary films. Each of the prominent streaming platforms caters to its own niche of film obsessives.

From chilling horror fare on Shudder, to the boundless wonders of the Criterion Channel, and esoteric (but unmissable) festival hits on Film Movement Plus and Ovid.tv, IndieWire’s monthly guide highlights the best of what’s coming to every major streaming site, with an eye towards exclusive titles that may help readers decide which of these services is right for them.

Here’s the best of the best for January 2020.

“Midsommar”

Despite its ritualistic terrors, slasher-inspired structure, and “Hostel”-like affinity for butchering self-obsessed American tourists, “Midsommar” is clearly a film that uses horror tropes as a means to an end. The sun-blasted story of a grieving young woman...

Burt Lancaster in Frank and Eleanor Perry's The Swimmer (1968), based upon the John Cheever short story. Courtesy of Film Forum.For decades, film critics and academics interested in the classical Hollywood cinema have been dutifully studying the canonized big stars—Cary Grant, Garbo, the Hepburns, Bogart and Bacall, Dietrich and Crawford and Monroe—while downplaying one of the most highly varied and fascinating careers of any studio actor: Burt Lancaster. Now, New York’s Film Forum is giving us a great excuse to revisit this actor’s towering body of work—emphasis on “body.” From big-name classics like Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980) and John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) to little-known masterpieces like Carol Reed’s Trapeze (1956) and Luchino Visconti’s late decadent chamber drama Conversation Piece (1974), a meaty, healthy range of Burt is on display for the next four weeks, between July 19 to August 15.Serious film talk...

Murder strikes a private college. In the new security guard’s efforts to find the killer, he uncovers sordid secrets and multiple unsavory conspiracies. Triple-threat Burt Lancaster boasts directing and screenwriting credits here, and heads a large, exemplary cast of suspects in a mystery that implicates practically all of them in something illegal.

The Midnight Man

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date February 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Linda Thorpe, Cameron Mitchell, Morgan Woodward, Harris Yulin, Robert Quarry, Joan Lorring, Lawrence Dobkin, Ed Lauter, Mills Watson, Charles Tyner, Catherine Bach, Bill Lancaster, Quinn K. Redeker, Peter Dane, Linda Kelsey, William Splawn, Nick Cravat.

Cinematography: Jack Priestley

Film Editor: Frank Moriss

Original Music: Dave Grusin

Written by Roland Kibbee, Burt Lancaster from a book by David Anthony

Produced and Directed by Roland Kibbee & Burt Lancaster

Carrying a reputation as an intelligent low-key murder mystery, 1975’s...

Burt Lancaster would’ve celebrated his 105th birthday on November 2, 2018. The Oscar-winning actor appeared in dozens of movies until his death in 1994. But which titles are among his finest? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of Lancaster’s greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1913, Lancaster got into acting after performing as an acrobat in the circus. He made his movie debut in 1946 with a leading role in the quintessential noir thriller “The Killers” (1946). He earned his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor for Fred Zinnemann‘s wartime drama “From Here to Eternity” (1953), winning the prize just seven years later for playing a fast-talking preacher in “Elmer Gantry” (1960). Lancaster would compete twice more in the category (“Birdman of Alcatraz” in 1962 and “Atlantic City” in 1981).

In the 1950s, the actor decided to chart his own career by forming the production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, which churned...

Avishai Sivan’s “Lot’s Wife” won the inaugural Goralska Award at the 13th edition of Pitch Point, the Israeli projects showcase which runs alongside the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Set up at Ronen Ben Tal at Plan b Productions, the fantasy-filled “Lot’s Wife” follows a religious couple who has a child born with two heads, named Noah and Lot. Lot is wicked, Noah good-hearted. After Noah dies and his head is detached, Lot sets on a challenge to overcome his nature.

The Goralska Award came with a cash prize of €20,000. Now in production, “Lot’s Wife” marks Sivan’s follow-up to “Tikkun,” which won the top prize at the Jerusalem festival in 2015 and was released in the U.S. by Kino Lorber.

The jury, composed of Kirsten Niehuus (Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg), Cedomir Kolar (Asap Films), Dominique Welinski (Dw), Tamara Tatishvili (Eurimages) and Gabor Greiner (Films Boutique), praised “Lot’s...

Avishai Sivan’s Lot’s Wife scoops top award.

Avishai Sivan’s film project Lot’s Wife has clinched the new $23,200 Goralska Award prize at the 13th edition of Jerusalem Film Festival’s (Jff) Pitch Point event, which is aimed at connecting Israeli filmmakers with international partners.

Described by the director as a cross-genre horror, fantasy, freak-show work, the picture revolves around a Hasidic couple’s two-headed baby. Going by the names of Noah and Lot, the two heads have opposite good and evil natures. When the virtuous Noah dies and his head is detached, Lot tries to mend his ways.