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Most books like this have a subtitle, but not this one. It is just Sartre . Take him as he is, or walk away – those are your options with the book, as it is with all things Sartrean.

This is a French graphic novel, written by Mathilde Ramadier and drawn by Anais Depommier. And I immediately have to take back what I just said – maybe it’s a subtle difference between how English-speakers view Sartre and how his countrymen do – because the 2015 Dargaud edition had the longer, more descriptive title Sartre, Une existence, des libertés. This 2017 US edition was translated by Peter Russella and published by Nbm.

It is a biography in comics form of the writer and philosopher – straightforward and chronological, starting with his youth and ending the main story in 1964 when he refused the Nobel Prize.

Actually, it nearly becomes a twinned biography – Simone de Beauvoir is almost as...

International film biz pros may be gearing up for the Berlinale and its European Film Market in February, but most of Europe’s top buyers were already back on the circuit last week for the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris showcasing French movies, series and talent.

The market component of the 27th edition, running January 14 to 17, swapped its recent location of the swanky Champs-Elysées Avenue eighth arrondissement for the grittier but storied Left Bank neighborhood of Montparnasse.

More than 80 French film and TV sales companies set up residence in the hangar-like Espace Pullman in the shadow of the Montparnasse Tower, to showcase their new French-language wares to 500 buyers from roughly 40 mainly European territories.

After years of being crammed into separate rooms, it was the first time France’s film and TV sales sectors were together in the same space and there was a different kind of energy.

“There’s a real market feel this year,...

In Walter Salles’ Oscar-shortlisted film I’m Still Here, set in 1970 at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship, Fernanda Torres plays an extraordinary mother: Eunice Paiva, who was left to raise five children alone after the disappearance of her activist husband Rubens (played by Selton Mello). In the movie, as in life, however, Eunice refuses to be worn down by the scare tactics of the regime, mounting a campaign of defiance that would take up 25 years of the widow’s life before the authorities finally took responsibility for this historic crime and issued Ruben’s death certificate in 1996. The real Eunice never broke down, at least never in public. “Photographers wanted to take pictures of us looking sad, so we started a battle against the media,” explained her son Marcelo, who wrote the memoir that Salles’ film is based on. “The family of Rubens Paiva does not cry in front of the cameras.

This year, 22 Catalan productions have been selected for the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival, highlighting just how much the region’s film industry is booming.

Among them is Mamífera, directed by Liliana Torres. The Barcelona-born filmmaker wanted to tackle the subject of “non-maternity” — a woman’s decision not to have children — in response to a stigma she has felt personally.

Torres’ project, screening in San Sebastian this week, follows Lola (played by Maria Rodríguez Soto) and Bruno (Enric Auquer), two 40-something-year-olds in a happy relationship. As Lola watches her friends and family obsess over either their own children or having children, she is shocked to find herself pregnant and unhappy about it. Everyone around her is so connected to the experience of motherhood, it causes Lola to grapple with the idea that something is wrong with her.

The film offers a poignant commentary on the societal pressure placed on women...

Fitting In stars Maddie Ziegler in one of her more emotionally demanding roles to date. It's a heartfelt and raw story from writer-director Molly McGlynn. Ziegler's character, Lindy, is diagnosed with Mrkh syndrome and quickly discovers that her body doesn't follow the same binary or script as most of her classmates. The reproductive condition throws Lindy and her life into turmoil, as it affects not only her relationships with others but also her relationship with herself. While her mom and friends try to support her, Lindy has to learn how to navigate this change in her worldview on her own.

Fitting In

Director Molly McGlynnRelease Date February 2, 2024Studio(s) Nice Picture IncWriters Molly McGlynnCast Ki Griffin, D'Pharaoh Woon-a-Tai, Djouliet Amara, Maddie Ziegler, Emily HampshireRating RRuntime 105 MinutesGenres Drama, ComedyDistributor(s) Elevation Pictures

Ziegler first began to flex her dramatic muscles as one of the characters in The Fallout, the 2022 drama that...

The skies over a soaked Paris remained overcast for Friday’s 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony as the promised trés unique spectacle on the River Seine proved rudderless despite some superstars, a historical mixtape, and a grande balançoire or two.

Despite the theatre on the grandest scale with landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral and the Louvre as the backdrop, the opening ceremony simply wasn’t great TV.

Even with the rain pouring down, things definitely improved once darkness fell over City of Lights more than two hours into NBC’s live coverage. Night unveiled more of the drama of Paris itself, the river, and the performers who came alive as the barge-propelled parade of nation and their 205 delegations came to an end.

In the end as Celine Dion made her much-hyped and pitch-perfect appearance under the Olympic rings on the sparkling Eiffel Tower and past Gold medalist...

Elsa Zylberstein, the French actor-producer whose timely movie “Simone: Woman of a Century” was recently released in the U.S., has signed with CAA for representation.

The actor’s performance as Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who became a feminist icon and human rights activist, earned critical praise and struck a chord with French audiences, becoming one of the highest-grossing French films of 2022.

Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films in the U.S., Olivier Dahan’s biopic sheds light on how Veil became a revered figure within France’s male-dominated political world after surviving the camps, championing the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France. The Holocaust Museum in L.A. will host a special screening of the movie on Nov. 29 in the presence of Zylberstein. A similar event is also being organized in Washington, D.C.

The actor has also launched production vehicles in France and the U.S. to develop...

Zylberstein unveils ambitious new slate of female-driven titles.

Isabel Coixet is in talks to direct Happy People Read And Drink Coffee, an adaptation of Agnes Martin-Lugand’s best-selling novel of the same name for Elsa Zylberstein’s fast-growing production company Sonia Films.

Mediawan Pictures is in advanced talks to co-produce the English and French-language film set between Paris and Ireland and is about a woman grieving her husband and daughter when a new love affair blossoms.

Zylberstein is also set to star in what is the latest project to be added to her female-focused film and TV slate.

The renowned French actress,...

Zylberstein unveils ambitious new slate of female-driven titles.

Isabel Coixet has signed to direct Happy People Read And Drink Coffee, an adaptation of Agnes Martin-Lugand’s best-selling novel of the same name for Elsa Zylberstein’s fast-growing production company Sonia Films.

Mediawan Pictures is in advanced talks to co-produce the English and French-language film set between Paris and Ireland and is about a woman grieving her husband and daughter when a new love affair blossoms.

Zylberstein is also set to star in what is the latest project to be added to her female-focused film and TV slate.

The renowned French actress,...

After recently playing her in Olivier Dahan’s Simone: Woman of the Century, Elsa Zylberstein will have another go at walking in the shoes and the penning writing skills of Simone de Beauvoir. Variety reports that the never-inactive Anne Fontaine is part of the filmmaker package that will bring the book to film adaptation of “Lettres à Nelson Algren” to life. The project fell on the laps of Christopher Hampton who’ll move from his initial treatment to screenwriting mode this summer. We figure the earliest this could move into production is sometime next year. Zylberstein has an invested interest in the project having landed the book rights.…...

Elsa Zylberstein (“Simone: Woman of the Century”) will star as the French feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir in a feature film that will be penned by Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton and directed by Anne Fontaine.

Zylberstein’s Sonia Films will produce the film with Philippe Carcassone’s banner Cine@ and Master Movie, the production vehicle of Marco and Lola Pacchioni.

Rather than a biopic, the movie will revolve around the passionate transatlantic romance between de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren.

Zylberstein has scooped the adaptation rights of de Beauvoir’s “Lettres à Nelson Algren” from Gallimard. Through those letters, the film will chart the pair’s affair, which spanned nearly two decades from 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, to 1964. Two-thirds of the movie will take place in Chicago, and the reminder will unfold in Paris.

Zylberstein said Hampton has penned a treatment and is expected to...

Warning: This story contains mild spoilers for “Beef,” available to watch on Netflix now.

Lee Sung Jin, the creator and showrunner of Netflix’s “Beef,” first worked with Steven Yeun and Ali Wong on the animated series “Tuca & Bertie.” But their latest collaboration sees the three reunite to craft a Netflix show along an A24 sensibility. “Beef,” which dropped on the streaming service on Apr. 6, traces the intersecting lives of Yeun’s Danny and Wong’s Amy after the two engage in a vitriolic road rage incident that sets both on a collision course to chaos. “Amy and Danny may differ in gender, class and career path, but they share a self-destructive nihilism that each seems to recognize in the other, even if they can’t articulate it,” writes Variety TV critic Alison Herman.

Rounding out the main cast are Young Mazino, who plays Danny’s younger brother Paul,...

The two quotes used to introduce Molly McGlynn’s Bloody Hell perfectly set the tone for the story the filmmaker is trying to tell. By using a powerful passage from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Bloody Hell sets the stage to dive deep into complicated questions of gender and sexuality, sticking to a female perspective on these matters. In addition, a quote from Jennifer’s Body screenwriter Diablo Cody also sets expectations high for an unusual coming-of-age story set in high school. However, while Bloody Hell is undoubtedly courageous for dealing with many sensitive themes, the film struggles to find its pacing and keep the audience engaged in a story that sometimes feels too predictable.

Oscar-winning writer Christopher Hampton is in talks to write a screenplay with French director Anne Fontaine about iconic feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nelson Algren’s transatlantic affair.

The playwright and screenwriter, who has won Oscars for The Father (2021) and Dangerous Liaisons (1989) and was also nominated for Atonement (2008), revealed he was in the early stages of the project during a masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event on Monday.

“We had an initial discussion followed by a more detailed discussion a week ago. I really want to do it,” he told Deadline in an interview after the talk.

De Beauvoir and Algren met in Chicago in 1947 and immediately embarked on a passionate affair that endured for more than 20 years in spite of the complications of transatlantic travel and communication at the time.

Paris-based intellectual de Beauvoir was in the midst of completing her seminal...

Gilmore Girls focused on the hectic relationship between mother and daughter, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, but it also showed Rory's relationship with literature and every book she reads. According to Book Riot, the characters read and refer to just shy of 410 books once the Netflix revival, A Year in the Life, came out in 2016. But there’s a big difference between books and authors that were referenced, and the books Rory was seen reading.

At the beginning of Gilmore Girls, Rory was just 16 years old and would rather spend her time reading. She said it best at her high school graduation in season 3, episode 22, “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio”: “I live in two worlds; one is a world of books.” Reading not only gave Rory a sense of peace but also took her out of dramatic realities. Unironically, some books Rory read paralleled her own life as a young woman...

Elyse Dinh, Casper Van Dien, Vivien Ngô and Ian Alexander in Daughter

A small scale film which plays with established genre tropes to misdirect viewers en route to an ending which takes it in a very different direction, Daughter provides a platform for underserved Asian American actors and stars Caspar Van Dien in a role unlike anything he’s previously done. He plays a man known only as Father, who presides over a makeshift family of people he has kidnapped in a remote, fortified home. After an opening sequence which illustrates what happens when one of them tries to escape, we meet Daughter/Sister (Vivien Ngô), a young woman who must quickly make sense of her situation if she is to survive. Issues around control and subversion on domestic and societal scales play out in a drama informed by the work of Simone de Beauvoir as viewers, like the heroine,...

Leonis Productions, the Newen Studios-owned French banner created by Jean-Benoit Gillig, is developing a raft of international shows on the heels of “Liaison,” Apple TV+’s first French original.

The company reached a milestone with “Liaison,” a thriller series created and entirely penned by Virginie Brac (“Spiral”) and directed by Stephen Hopkins. Vincent Cassel and Eva Green lead a cast that includes Peter Mullan, Gérard Lanvin, Daniel Francis, Stanislas Merhar, Irène Jacob, Laëtitia Eïdo, Eriq Ebouaney, Tchéky Karyo, Bukky Bakray and Thierry Fremont.

“It’s a sprawling French-British thriller set against the backdrop of Brexit, and there’s a metaphor between the love tragedy playing as the primary plot and the political tragedy embodied by Brexit unfolding in the background,” said Gillig.

“The starting point of this series was our wish to create a series using Brexit as a canvas, and from there Virginie Brac was able to conceive a...

"It fills me with joy to know that our family is whole again." Dark Star Pics has revealed an official trailer for an indie film titled Daughter, a dark mystery thriller from filmmaker Corey Deshon making his feature debut. This premiered at the UK's FrightFest last year, and will be out to watch on VOD in February. Aside from Casper Van Dien, most of the cast is Vietnamese. A young woman is inducted into a bizarre family as their new surrogate daughter. "Inspired by feminist existentialist philosopher Simone De Beauvoir's 'The Ethics of Ambiguity,' this film is a meditation on the morality and ethics of freedom and creative expression within an oppressed system. Through this surrealist psychodrama, we seek to explore the questions, 'Can one truly be free if they do not will the freedom of others?' and, 'If that freedom must come at a moral cost,...

Naomi Pacifique is a filmmaker who stood out to Dn when we first caught her short film after a room as part of the London Film School’s graduate showcase earlier in the year. Amongst a plethora of innovative and exciting student films, Pacifique’s short left an indelible mark as it was unlike anything else screening in the best way. Her short, which won the Pardino d’Argento Swiss Life at Locarno Film Festival and premieres with Dn today, is a lucid and sensual film about the exploration of the body between two lovers in their apartment. Pacifique stars in the film and weaves footage of her younger self amongst the tactile encounters, creating a thought-provoking excavation of our ongoing relationship with ourselves and our bodies. You can watch after a room below and follow it up with our in-depth chat with Pacifique where she reveals her intentions for the film,...

Best-known for her role as Noemie in the hit French series “Call My Agent!,” Laure Calamy has emerged in recent years as one of France’s biggest stars and most versatile actors. After a busy career in theater and many notable supporting roles, she finally got a shot at leading roles, and kudos have followed, for Caroline Vignal’s romantic comedy “My Donkey, My Lover and I,” which was part of Cannes’ Official Selection and earned her a Cesar award, and Eric Gravel’s social drama “A Plein Temps,” for which she won best actress at Venice in the Horizons section.

Calamy is now on a roll and she’s shown that she can play anything. Case in point: Over this summer, she was at Locarno to present Blandine Lenoir’s period drama “Angry Annie,” in which she plays a working mother who joins the Movement for the Liberation of...

Georgian-German drama “A Room of My Own,” about a young woman looking for a female roommate in Tbilisi after her personal life implodes, has its team thinking about future reactions in the Republic of Georgia. But director Ioseb “Soso” Bliadze and actress/co-writer Taki Mumladze are “ready” to address subjects considered controversial in their home country, they tell Variety, from domestic abuse to same-sex relationships.

“We will fight for this film,” says Bliadze, returning to Karlovy Vary Film Festival after his 2021 release “Otar’s Death.” Now, “A Room of My Own” – a Maisis Peri and Color of May production – will vie for the festival’s Crystal Globe award.

“In our country, conservative voices are getting louder and louder, and our government is backing them up. That’s our answer to them.”

In 2020, Levan Akin’s “And Then We Danced,” featuring a gay love story, became the subject of violent mass protests.

Zella Day has dropped the pro-choice anthem “Radio Silence,” a new single detailing her experience with life-threatening complications from an unintended pregnancy.

Written in the fall of 2021, the song is a heart-wrenching indie folk stunner that evokes college radio-era R.E.M. “Hold my body, can you feel it,” she sings. “I’ve been trying to keep this secret down.”

“I had life-threatening complications with a pregnancy three years ago, and I can’t even imagine what it would have been like had I not been given the freedom to...

Click here to read the full article.

With the release of Emily in Paris: The Official Cookbook, fans of the Netflix hit show can fully immerse their tastebuds in French city living.

Set to be released Aug. 16, the 224-page cookbook (33) lets Francophiles and Emily in Paris fans experience the glamorous lifestyle of Emily Cooper (played by Lily Collins) from the comfort of their very own kitchen with a variety of classic and unique recipes inspired by the show.

Taste your way through a day in Emily’s life in the City of Lights with items like Gabriel’s Omelette and Pierre’s Cracked Crème Brûlées. Fans will also find French staples like ratatouille and pain au chocolat, along with American favorites such as Quiche au Ciment (also known as Chicago deep-dish pizza) and bacon cheeseburgers.

In addition to 75 Emily in Paris-inspired recipes, the hardcover book will feature stills from the show,...

Alain Berliner, who directed the BAFTA-nominated and Golden Globe-winning “Ma vie en rose,” is in pre-production on feature documentary “Bardot,” about French actor, singer and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot. Bardot is giving the project her full support, and will narrate the film herself.

“Bardot” is produced by Julien Loeffler, James Kermack and James Barton-Steel at Featuristic Films, teaming with Nicolas Bary at TimpelPictures. They have released an exclusive first look image from the film.

The film will offer Bardot an opportunity “to speak openly about her life and revisit some of the issues she feels passionately about,” such as women’s place in society, animal welfare, deforestation and global warming, according to a statement from the producers. It will contain never seen before archive film and photos, as well as music from the 1950s and 1960s.

Berliner said: “The icon that is Brigitte Bardot remains a mystery. Today, she should be considered a feminist,...

Despite forging her own way as a successful actor and singer, acclaimed for her collaborations with Lars von Trier, Charlotte Gainsbourg has been compared to her father Serge and mom Jane Birkin all her life, she says. In directorial debut “Jane by Charlotte,” she comes back to the subject on her own terms. Shown at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival this week following its Cannes premiere, the film is sold internationally by The Party Film Sales.

“I lived in New York for a bit and it was a real breather, to be in a place where I didn’t have to talk about them. Then I started this documentary and realized I wanted to be close to my mother,” she says.

“Now that I’ve come back to France, I am also trying to turn my father’s house into a museum. I’ve always said I wanted to avoid...

La Lupe never seemed to second-guess herself onstage. The Afro-Cuban singer — who died 30 years ago this week, on Feb. 29, 1992 — was infinitely watchable, unafraid to kick and howl and twitch, as if the music were sending electric jolts throughout her body. In Cuba, where she headlined nightclubs in the early 1960s, she enthralled novelists like Ernest Hemingway and Guillermo Cabrera, both of whom wrote about the rhapsodic fury that seemed to overtake her when she sang. Her first husband Eulogio Reyes once said that the first time he saw her perform,...

There is no shortage or writing out there on the potentially solipsistic nature of love, from Immanuel Kant to Simone de Beauvoir to Jg Ballard, but to determine whether or not it’s a problem, one has to understand what one is looking for in the first place. Is it love itself that is so attractive, or the idea of it? Oxytocin, dopamine, internally produced opioids – all these things can be generated using stimuli other than another human being, and doing so offers liberation from dependency on unhealthy relationships. But self-sufficiency like this doesn’t deliver for those who want personalised reassurance and affection, somebody to hold them, or arm candy to show off to their friends. At least, it didn’t. Robotic romantic partners are gradually getting more sophisticated. Soon they’ll be indistinguishable from the real thing.

If you keep getting terrible recommendations from Netflix and Facebook pushes products at you that.

“What if the mob, but funny?” is the question asked by “Love Songs for Tough Guys,” and if your answer is “Isn’t that just ‘Analyze This?’” you aren’t alone. Still, this French spin on the thug-with-a-heart-of-gold story distinguishes itself somewhat with a romantic bent that is, at least in fits and starts, genuinely romantic. The rest of the time, co-writer-director Samuel Benchetrit’s lighthearted romp struggles to find a place for itself.

Leading the eponymous group of heavies is Jeff de Claerke (François Damiens), whose low-level thuggery leaves him just enough time to take a poetry class so he can woo a local checkout girl. His wife (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) isn’t aware of his would-be affair, leading her to believe the poorly written ode she finds discarded in the trash one day is actually for her. His crew isn’t the most intimidating — one is always quoting books on inner peace,...

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s directorial debut “Jane by Charlotte,” a documentary about her model-actor mother Jane Birkin, is set to travel to major territories.

Represented in international markets by The Party Film Sales, the feature world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to play at a flurry of film festivals, including New York and Colcoa in Los Angeles.

The film, which portrays Birkin, an actor, singer-songwriter and fashion icon who was Serge Gainsbourg’s longtime lover, has been acquired for Canada (Maison 4:3), Benelux (Piece of Magic), Italy (Wanted), Portugal (Zero Em Comportamento), Spain (Filmin), Switzerland (Ado), Scandinavia (Non Stop Entertainment), Russia/Cis (Russian Wold Vision), Baltics (A-One Baltics) and Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia/Slovenia (McF).

The documentary was recently acquired by Utopia in the U.S. and will be released domestically in 2022. Jour2Fete, The Party Films Sales’ sister company, will handle the French release. “Jane by Charlotte” was produced by Gainsbourg,...

Chicago – When Michael Caplan began his journey creating the film biography of legendary Chicago author Nelson Algren, he was a self-described “fan” but not much else. After spending several years with the man who wrote “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Michael Caplan has certainly got to know him well.

Caplan has produced a long overdue comprehensive documentary on writer Nelson Algren that gets into the weeds of his amazing life as an outlier and chronicler of the dispossessed. After graduating college during the Depression, Algren spent time as a drifter and collected the experiences – along with observations in his eventual Chicago ne’er-do-well west side neighborhood – that became his run of literary classics. This includes “The Neon Wilderness,” “The Man with the Golden Arm,” “A Walk on the Wild Side” and “Chicago: The City on the Make,” not to mention an infamous affair with French feminist author Simone De Beauvoir.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review on the new documentary film “Algren” – regarding iconic Chicago author and character, Nelson Algren – in select theaters and through Video on Demand.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

This long overdue comprehensive documentary on writer Nelson Algren gets into the weeds of his amazing life as an outlier and chronicler of the dispossessed. After graduating college during the Depression, he spent time as a drifter and collected the experiences – along with observations in his eventual Chicago ne’er-do-well west side neighborhood – that became his run of literary classics. This includes “The Neon Wilderness,” “The Man with the Golden Arm,” “A Walk on the Wild Side” and “Chicago: The City on the Make,” not to mention an infamous affair with French feminist author Simone De Beauvoir.

“Algren” is currently in select theaters and through Video on Demand, including Chicago’s Music Box Theatre Direct, click here. Directed by Michael Caplan.

Matt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg are attached to star in Fred Garson’s “An Ocean Apart,” a period drama about the romantic affair between French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and American writer Nelson Algren.

The film is being developed by French producer Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films, which is presenting Xavier Giannoli’s Venice competition player “Lost Illusions” and Yvan Attal’s “Les choses humaines,” and Matthew Gledhill at Wheelhouse Prods. Dillon is at Venice with “Land of Dreams,” screening in the Horizons section, and Gainsbourg stars in “Les choses humaines,” unspooling out of competition.

Set during the late 1940s in Paris and Chicago, “An Ocean Apart” was written by Ron Riley in collaboration with Garson and Claire Barré. The film charts the fiery yet mostly letter-based relationship between Beauvoir and Algren that spanned from 1947 to 1964. Algren, who was Jewish, is best known for the...

Ulrike Ottinger’s recollections of life as a budding artist in 1960s Paris challenge the city’s image as a creative utopia

Mostly comprising of a voiceover and archival footage, German auteur Ulrike Ottinger’s new film feels like a stylistic shift from the avant-garde, carnivalesque works of queer radicalism for which she is best known. Underneath the unhurried pace and the exhaustive account of Ottinger’s experience of 1960s Paris as a budding artist, there is a politically conscious playfulness that displays her ability to interweave different art forms and storytelling styles.

True to its title, the film rolls like a calligram, a text format where words are arranged to form a thematically relevant image. Ottinger’s recollections of past encounters with intellectual and artistic luminaries coalesce into a portrait of Paris, as well as herself. Calligrammes is the name of a bookstore owned by Fritz Picard that became...

Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah director Adam Benzine: “It’s really a film about how Shoah was the making of Claude Lanzmann.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

When Claude Lanzmann passed away in Paris on the morning of July 5, 2018, Arnaud Desplechin and Antonin Baudry sent tributes in honour of the man who directed the documentaries Shoah, The Last Of The Unjust, Napalm, Israel, Why, and Shoah: Four Sisters (Les Quatre Soeurs). Adam Benzine’s revealing Oscar-nominated Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah shows us the man who was behind the making of one of the most important films in the history of cinema.

Adam Benzine with Anne-Katrin Titze on Claude Lanzmann: “He fought in the resistance as a teenager, he was a lover of Simone de Beauvoir, he was in Algeria with Sartre and Nelson Algren.”

After Adam interviewed Albert Maysles, Robert Drew, Michael Apted, D A Pennebaker for a book on documentarians,...

In the driving seat: Yolande Moreau (behind left), Noémie Lvovsky and Juliette Binoche (front) in How To Be A Good Wife by Martin Provost Photo: UniFrance

As a mere male, director Martin Provost has demonstrated his feminist credentials long before Me Too made it fashionable and politic to do so. In Séraphine, winner of seven Césars (the French Oscars) he explored the life of an outsider artist unforgettably incarnated by Yolande Moreau. With The Midwife (Sage Femme) he united Catherine Frot and Catherine Deneuve as they confront life’s shifting sands. En route there was also his portrait of writer Violette Leduc with Emmanuelle Devos as the contemporary and protegé of Simone de Beauvoir.

Martin Provost: "My strong feminist streak comes from my mother. She was more important in my life than my father …” Photo: UniFrance

Provost’s new film How To Be A Good Wife is distinctly different and...

First-time filmmaker Miwa Yoshimine directs, edits and produces what feels like a very personal project and a real labour of love and appreciation for a special woman. “This Planet is not My Planet” is indeed a loving portrait of Mitsu Tanaka, the legendary mother of the of the women’s liberation movement in Japan, called ūman ribu (women’s lib), back in 1970. An enthusiastic and dedicated 76-year-old acupuncturist and social activist these days, Tanaka is left free to open her heart and talk about her past and read passages of her book “This Planet is not My Planet” on which the film is based.

“This Planet is Not My Planet” is screening at Nippon Connection 2020

Born in Tokyo, she grew up in the difficult post-war era, in a working-class family of fishmongers and restaurant owners that, despite nurturing a freedom-based environment, wasn’t particularly politicised or intellectual. She didn’t...

"Life-Edit (A Companion to Streaming and Solitude)" is a text by Costanza Candeloro commissioned by Fondazione Prada. Focused on the individual and collective experience of streaming, this native content accompanies the film project "Perfect Failures" conceived by Mubi and Fondazione Prada and available on the online platform in select countries from April 5, 2020. Every week an illustrated chapter of the text will be published on Fondazione Prada’s website and on the Notebook. Above: Carole Roussopoulos filming the demonstration of the Lip company workers in Besançon, September 1973, for her documentary La Marche de Besançon. Lip II (1973). Distribution by Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, ParisMovie memory works exactly like editing: it modifies, selects and assembles useful information, relevant images in order to give continuity to a personal bond with video reality. Wonderful representations of these processes merge the screen, streaming and the nomadism of multiple platforms with selective taste. Current streaming modes...

It would be a great mistake, sight unseen, to pigeonhole Ulrike Ottinger’s “Paris Calligrammes” as just another nostalgia-filled personal documentary about how amazing life was in Paris in the 1960s. Where others self-servingly wax lyrical about being in the nexus of the Left Bank’s Golden Age of hipness and activism, Ottinger takes us through this formative time of her life in a way that deftly balances past and present to paint a picture of a threshold era of both positives and negatives.

Recounted in the director’s own measured voiceover (the English version features Jenny Agutter while the French version has Fanny Ardant) and largely composed of found footage, film clips and home movies, the film reflects the director’s generosity of spirit as well as the period’s bubbling cauldron of syncretic and opposing movements. Promoted together with a handsome book tie-in, “Paris Calligrammes” should spark renewed...

Filmmaker Alma Har’el helped conceive Time’s 100 Women of the Year issue, designed to recognize the contributions of female leaders, innovators, activists, entertainers, athletes and artists who defined the century from 1920 through 2019. Along with original portraits, the magazine will release 100 covers reflecting the era of each year.

“I don’t think Time has ever done anything this big,” “Honey Boy” director Har’el says, speaking exclusively to Variety. “They usually do one of these covers a year. We’re doing 100 of them.”

“If I felt hungry to take solace in some of the histories of some of these women, I immersed myself in it in the most encompassing way I could,” she adds. The idea was born out of Ha’rel’s frustration and a need to “do something that takes me outside of myself.”

Har’el spent much of 2019 on the awards trail discussing “Honey Boy,” a drama written by and starring Shia Labeouf.

“Since Trump was elected, there’ve been all these times when the news is on and I’m singing a Bikini Kill song in my head,” says Kathleen Hanna. “It’s like I need to hear these songs.”

She’s not alone. Since reuniting with Bikini Kill bassist Kathi Wilcox and drummer Tobi Vail in 2019, ending a 22-year break, Hanna has been performing songs like 1993’s “Rebel Girl” for their biggest crowds ever. “With the #MeToo movement and a president who says, ‘Grab them by the pussy,’ it’s hard not to feel like,...

Madonna is opening up about her life and career in a new interview with British Vogue. Over the years, the 60-year-old singer - who recently performed her new song "Medellín" at the Billboard Music Awards - has maintained her status as one of the most influential pop stars, delivering classic jams such as "Like a Virgin," "Express Yourself," and "Like a Prayer."

With her upcoming album Madame X set to drop on June 14, the icon is reflecting on her journey in the music industry as well as her experience with ageism and being a mother to her six children: Lourdes, 22, Rocco, 18, David, 13, Mercy, 13, and 6-year-old twins Estere and Stelle. She also addresses the previous rumors of her feud with Lady Gaga that swirled for nearly a decade.

Ahead, read some of her standout quotes, then see the full feature in the June issue of British Vogue, available on digital download and newsstands on Friday,...

Marcel Carrière doesn’t act like a man who helped to change the course of cinema history. At the age of 83, he is still a boyish, endlessly curious and inventive character who spins the most amazing yarns. One minute he’s explaining how he helped top up Stravinsky’s hip flask with a nip of the composer’s favorite Johnny Walker, the next he’s explaining how he grabbed a few illicit shots of Paul Anka at New York’s Copacabana Club, right under the Mob owners’ noses by posing as a tourist. But most astonishing of all is the time he snuck some footage of Jean-Paul Sartre flirtatiously playing the piano to a young admirer, much to the chagrin of his famous partner, Simone De Beauvoir.

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Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSClaude Lanzmann, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Satre, 1967. Photo via Rithy Panh.Shoah director and singular cinematic chronicler of the Holocaust, Claude Lanzmann has sadly left us. Daniel Lewis provides a comprehensive remembrance for The New York Times. Last year, we wrote on his last five films films, Napalm and The Four Sisters, a quartet of documentaries.Recommended VIEWINGEven through his perhaps more artistically compromised mainland blockbusters, we remain dedicated fans of Tsui Hark's daring, punk cinematic vision. We especially highly regard his Detective Dee films, and thus are very excited for the forthcoming Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, which has received this ecstatic new trailer.An oddly modern trailer showcasing the new gorgeous restoration of Jacques Rivette's first masterpiece (starring Anna Karina!), The Nun (1966). In a qualitative sense, Yorgos Lanthimos' films...

Claude Lanzmann, the French journalist, historian and director best known for his seminal Holocaust documentary “Shoah,” has died. He was 92. A spokesperson for the publishing house Gallimard confirmed Lanzmann died after having been “very very weak” for several days.

Despite his age and declining health, Lanzmann still had an active filmmaking career. His latest documentary feature “Les Quatre Soeurs,” which brings together the testimonies of four Holocaust survivors, was released in theaters in France on Wednesday.

For Lanzmann, filmmaking wasn’t just an artistic calling, it was also a way of ensuring that one of history’s darkest chapters never faded into obscurity. “Shoah,” an 11-year odyssey to bring to the screen, was the most notable of those efforts. The nine-and-a-half-hour offered up penetrating interviews with survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators of the concerted attempt by Hitler and his followers to exterminate European Jews, combining them with Lanzmann’s visits to Holocaust sites.

Claude Lanzmann, the French journalist and director of the landmark 1985 Holocaust documentary “Shoah,” died in Paris on Thursday at age 92.

“Claude Lanzmann died at his home. He had been very, very weak for several days,” a spokeswoman for publishing house Gallimard told Afp.

“The Four Sisters,” a four-part docu-series about four Jewish Holocaust survivors, was just released in France this week.

Also Read: For 25th Anniversary, IFC to Re-Release 'Shoah'

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants to France, Lanzmann was born in Paris in 1925 and fought in the resistance as a teenager.

In the 1950s, he plunged into a long career in journalism, mostly with Simone de Beauvoir’s journal Les Temps Modernes. He took over as chief editor following her death in 1986.

Lanzmann’s move into filmmaking grew out of his journalism, first with 1973’s “Why Israel?” that was based on a series of interviews on French TV.

A contemporary of Sartre and de Beauvoir, Lanzmann was a dashing figure whose films about the Holocaust remain exemplars of honesty and good faith

The director Claude Lanzmann, who continued to make films and to publish into his 90s, was one of the great generation of postwar public intellectuals on the progressive left: a mandarin of European thought, a panjandrum of contemporary ethics. Lanzmann was a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre with a dashing and even rather swashbuckling profile, a magazine founder, a petition signer, a superstar attender at soirées and conferences. It all made him appear as a man of action as well as a man of contemplation: and someone whose amours arguably marked him out as steeped in the robustly male sexual politics of an era different from the present day.

Local media reported the film-maker passed way in his native city of Paris on Thursday (July 5).

French director Claude Lanzmann, maker of the epic nine-and-a-half hour Holocaust documentary Shoah, has died at the age of 92.

Local media reported the film-maker passed way in his native city of Paris on Thursday (July 5).

Lanzmann was best known for the 1985 landmark documentary Shoah capturing the horror of the Holocaust through extensive interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators, against the backdrops of sites of death camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He spent 11 years researching and making the film, at the same time as...

Giant of French intellectual life known for his heavyweight journalism and series of documentaries about the Holocaust

Claude Lanzmann, the French film-maker and journalist who was best known for the exhaustive Holocaust documentary Shoah, has died aged 92. Lanzmann’s family confirmed his death to Le Monde, though its cause has not been revealed.

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants to France, Lanzmann was born in Paris in 1925, and as a teenager fought in the resistance before studying philosophy at the Sorbonne after the war. After a period teaching in West Germany in the late 40s, he returned to France and, after meeting Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, he was invited to join the board of Les Temps Modernes, the influential journal they had founded in 1945. He embarked on a passionate relationship with de Beauvoir, 18 years his senior, and they lived together from 1952 to 1959. In 1986, Lanzmann became chief editor of...

Claude Lanzmann, the French filmmaker best known for the acclaimed Holocaust documentary Shoah has died in Paris. The director’s family confirmed the news to Le Monde and a spokesperson for publishing house Gallimard said Lanzmann passed away at home after having been “very very weak” for several days. He was 92. His death comes one day after the French theatrical release of his latest film, Les Quatre Soeurs, which features testimonials from four Holocaust survivors which were not included in Shoah.

Lanzmann was born in Paris on November 27, 1925. During World War II, his family went into hiding and he joined the French Resistance at the age of 17. He later fell in with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other leaders of the French intellectual Left.

He worked as a journalist and joined the editorial team of revue Les Temps Modernes alongside de Beauvoir and Sartre in the 1950s, ultimately becoming its director.

The Very Eye of Night is a series of columns on non-binary and female avant-garde film and video artists. The title refers to Maya Deren’s last completed film. Anthology Film Archives in New York presents a five-program retrospective of Carole Roussopoulos’s videos from November 7–9, 2017. The screenings will be introduced by Nicole Fernández Ferrer, director of the Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center.Carole Roussopoulos, 1970. Photo by Guy Le Querrec.Jean-Luc Godard wrote a letter to Carole Roussopoulos in 1979 for Cahiers du cinéma in which he reflected on the motivations behind making films, and inquired: “Sometimes I wonder what has happened to all you have filmed in the four corners of France and the world… And I wonder why people in cinema want to film others with so much frenzy.” As Nicole Brenez recalls, the Swiss filmmaker responded to him: “to privilege the approach of those without a voice.” Carole Roussopoulos...