CANNES, France -- Making a movie about a donkey,or to be more specific, from a donkey's point of view is an audacious project. But that's just what Jerzy (pronounced "Ya-shee") Skolimosky did and his film, a slow and oppressive rumination on humans and their relationship to the animal world was screened here on Thursday. A circus troupe. A grey donkey and his handler Kassandra. The animal seems ... more >
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CANNES FESTIVAL: “EO,” no animals were harmed in the making of this film
Produced by Skopia Film and Jeremy Thomas
Sandra Drzymalska, Isabelle Huppert and Lorenzo Zurzolo
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowsky
CANNES FESTIVAL: Marco Bellocchio’s ESTERNO NOTTE revisits the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Aldo Moro
Film acts as counterweight to “Good morning, Night” which Bellocchio directed in 2003
Fabrizio Gifuni, Margherita Buy and Toni Servillo
Directed by Marco Bellocchio
CANNES, France — Marco Bellocchio's "Esterno Notte" ("Exterior Night") is an essential and dramatic film that soberly tells the truth of an important period of Italy’s history, a pivotal moment, the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro, former President of Italy. "Esterno Notte" is a made-for-TV miniseries, six episodes that were combined and screened on Wednesday in Cannes in the Cannes ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL: not beating around the bush, “Final Cut” (“Coupez!”) was insane and brilliant
A movie set bares all
Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo and Grégory Gadebois
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
CANNES, France — I have an ear-to-ear smile plastered on my face as I just watched the trailer for "Coupez!" the next-day refresher after taking in the movie last night here in Cannes, where it opened the 75th edition of the festival. At the screening I laughed and I laughed and I laughed again. Because the film is brilliant and handled with maestria by Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and it's ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL: “For the sake of peace,” produced by Forest Whitaker
Peace-building starts in the community
Directed by Christophe Castagne and Thomas Sametin
CANNES, France—Two tribes, the Didinga and the Logir, on different sides of a vast patch of fertile vegetation, which they must share in order for their cattle to graze, but each tribe cattle-raids the other and tit-for-tat reprisals are bloody because nobody wants to really share. This dispute over natural resources, which takes place in South Sudan, echoes many others before it throughout ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL: DAY ONE ALMOST
Train travel can be unpredictable, an encounter, streaming versus in-theater moviegoing, a great bunch of filmmakers
Arriving early, anywhere, is winning. Sort of. On Monday my train, the first one out of Paris that morning, was held for four hours in Saint-Raphael, about fifteen miles from Cannes, after an electrical outage wreaked havoc at our destination. Four hours later, the train started finally moving. The same fate awaited my colleagues who took a later train out of the French capital, their train was ... more >
Thora Birch, Terry Zwigoff, Guillermo Del Toro and SOY CUBANA’s filmmaker Jeremy Ungar help cap off EBERTFEST 2022
Festival hadn't been held in person since 2019
CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill.—The final two days of Ebertfest which ended on Sunday featured some great films in addition to stellar guests who spoke about their craft. Mostly, the invited guests discussed what motivated them to create their art, and the organizers also testified to what drives some of them to program the films they do. Chaz Ebert kicked off Friday’s program by introducing Jason ... more >
Cries, whispers and laughter from the floor to the screen–it’s EBERTFEST 2022!
Ebertfest has been held since 1999
Wednesday evening kicked off the 2022 festival with “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which recently won the Oscar for best documentary. On Thursday morning, Ebert’s widow Chaz opened the proceedings by introducing the first full day of programming now that the festival has returned to in-person screenings for the first time since 2019. “During the ‘great ... more >
