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There have been relatively few biopics about choreographers, but it’s hard to think of a better one than “John Cranko,” about the late South African who made his name in England and Germany. Steering well clear of “Eureka!” moments and other clichés within the portrait-of-an-artist genre, Joachim A. Lang’s feature finds unusually vivid means of conveying how a driven creator’s mind works by having the dance ideas in his head constantly integrated into the everyday life depicted. With a terrific performance by Sam Riley in the title role, this handsome production — with no end of first-rate terpsichorean performance onscreen — should reignite interest in a figure whose rising international stature got curtailed by his abrupt demise in 1973, at age 45.

Lang limits himself to the years of Cranko’s finding a mature career berth with the Stuttgart Ballet. He wound up there through circumstances just briefly referred to: After...

Paris, Texas, spine #501, is now available on 4K in the Criterion Collection.

Wim Wenders sprawling masterpiece receives a well-deserved 4K update this month from the Criterion Collection. Part mystery, part neo-western and part road trip movie, Paris, Texas is a beautiful depiction of love, loss and the American west.

Related The 100 Greatest Movies of All-Time Paris, Texas plot

Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) wonders out of the desert after being missing for years. He seemingly has no idea who he is or where he’s been. He’s reunited with his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), whose been raising Travis’ young son. Travis’ surprising reappearance causes the lives of those around him to be thrown into disarray as he slowly begins to piece his former life back together.

The review

The cinematography, consisting of wide shots, vacant landscapes and minimalist imagery, gives Paris, Texas a distinct visual style that perfectly compliments...

Multiverses have become a box office staple lately, courtesy of Marvel and the like, but they are rarely as elegantly mounted as this retro and twisty little mystery from Timm Kröger. Forget separating fact from fiction in his lush black-and-white noir-inflected drama, here the possibilities of multiple facts and existences swirl within a story which, within the world of the film, has been marketed as fiction though the author Johannes (Jan Bülow) insists it is nothing but the truth.

Johannes appears to assert this in a prologue, on a Seventies talks show, Roland Stuprich’s colour cinematography as perfectly evoking the period as he will conjure up the early Sixties in full-blooded monochrome expressionist style. Soon we’re spinning back to the Swiss Alps in 1962, where Johannes - then a young physics doctoral student - has headed with his starchy supervising professor Dr Strathen (Hanns Zischler). We are enveloped within his story,...

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers follow for 'Munich'

Quick Links What Is Steven Spielberg's 'Munich' About? 'Munich' Is One of Steven Spielberg’s Best Films — And One of Daniel Craig’s Too 'Munich' Is a Fantastic Spy Thriller

Over the last decade, Daniel Craig has ably proven that he’s more than just Agent 007. After winning unanimous praise from critics and fans alike as arguably the best actor to ever play James Bond, it would’ve been easy for that role to overshadow Craig for the rest of his career. Thankfully, he’s dispelled those fears at seemingly every turn, showcasing a surprising knack for comedic timing in Knives Out and the underrated Logan Lucky, and now he’s getting long-overdue Oscar buzz for supposedly career-best work in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer.

However, many knew that Daniel Craig had acting chops long before...

On Wednesday, world sales agency Beta Cinema hosts the market premiere of “John Cranko,” starring Sam Riley, at the American Film Market in Las Vegas. Variety speaks to the director Joachim A. Lang ahead of the screening and debuts the film’s international trailer (below).

The film, based on true events, follows in the footsteps of John Cranko as he arrives in Stuttgart in 1960 to be guest choreographer at the German city’s ballet company. A South African by birth, he had previously worked in London, but his tenure at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet had been jeopardized after he was prosecuted for committing a “homosexual act” in a public place, which at that time was outlawed in the U.K.

The film follows Cranko as he is made director of the Stuttgart ballet company and fights to revolutionize the art, culminating in a triumphant visit to New York, after which Time magazine commented,...

"I know where the woman you're looking for is." Picturehouse has revealed the official UK trailer for the mysterious film The Universal Theory, a mind-boggling sci-fi-tinged thriller set in the Swiss mountains. This first premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival one year ago under the original title The Theory of Everything, and it earned mostly mixed reviews (mine is here). We also posted the US trailer recently. The noir film is set in 1962. A physics congress in the Alps. An Iranian guest. A mysterious pianist. A bizarre cloud in the sky, a boom under the mountain. It's "a quantum mechanical thriller in black & white." Driven by astonishing twists and improbable coincidences, The Universal Theory unravels a captivatingly complex chronicle with brain-tickling suspense. Lead by a fantastic cast & interspersed with a dynamic soundtrack, The Theory of Everything is an intellectual sci-fi film about the contingency of our world, in which much...

In the age of the Marvel multiverse, The Universal Theory, directed by Timm Kröger, is a breath of fresh air. Perhaps because it's science fiction in the most traditional sense of the term, in the same way Frankenstein by Mary Shelley gave birth to the genre. Black and white, dramatic lighting, gorgeous cinematography, commendable score and sound editing. A German film set in the Swiss Alps. Physics. Johannes Leinert (Jan Bülow) is a young man travelling with his PhD supervisor to a congress. Dr. Strathen (Hanns Zischler) makes no secret of his disdain for Johannes thesis, a formula of some sort that explains, well, everything. Especially when things begin to get strange-- a dead man is not dead, a mysterious pianist (Olivia Ross) knows about...

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

"This young man here is working on something very significant." Oscilloscope Labs has revealed an official US trailer for a film titled The Universal Theory, a mysterious sci-fi-tinged thriller set deep in the Swiss mountains. This first premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival one year ago under the original title The Theory of Everything, and it earned mostly mixed reviews (mine is here). The noir film is set in 1962. A physics congress in the Alps. An Iranian guest. A mysterious pianist. A bizarre cloud in the sky, a booming mystery under the mountain. It's "a quantum mechanical thriller in black & white." Driven by astonishing twists and improbable coincidences, The Universal Theory unravels a captivatingly complex chronicle with brain-tickling suspense. Cast with a fantastic ensemble and interspersed with a dynamic soundtrack, The Theory of Everything is an intellectual film about the contingency of our world, in which much is possible and hardly anything is necessary.

Oscilloscope Laboratories, the distribution company set up by late Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch, has acquired U.S. rights to The Universal Theory, which recently premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival (as the title The Theory of Everything). A theatrical release is planned for 2024.

From director Timm Kröger, the German drama is set in 1962 at a quantum mechanics conference in an isolated lodge nestled amid the towering landscapes of the Swiss Alps, and is the story of a gifted young physicist, his curmudgeonly mentor and an enigmatic jazz pianist who knows things about our wunderkind scientist that he’s never told another living soul. As the description goes, the film is “driven by astonishing twists, improbable coincidences and Hitchcockian suspense,” and “considers the metaverse theory from a refreshingly intelligent point of view.”

The main cast includes Jan Bülow, Olivia Ross, Hanns Zischler, Gottfried Breitfuss, David Bennent, Philippe Graber and Imogen Kogge.

Timm Kröger’s feature debut title is being sold by Paris-based sales outfit Charades.

Picturehouse Entertainment has taken UK and Ireland rights for Timm Kröger’s Venice competition title The Theory Of Everything from Paris-based sales outfit Charades.

German director Kröger’s black-and-white metaphysical noir is set in the Swiss Alps in the winter of 1962. It centres on a young doctor-to-be attending an international convention where he finds a mysterious pianist, a bizarre cloud formation in the sky and a dark, booming secret under the mountain, all part of the titular “theory of everything.”

The genre-hopping film is produced by Germany’s ma.

Thanks to science fiction, we all have a basic grip on the theory of the multiverse: the idea that there are innumerable parallel worlds in which the chances and choices of the past – the roads not taken, whether by ourselves or the dinosaurs – have split off into alternative stories, endlessly bifurcating into other pasts, other futures that must be peopled, most provocatively, with other versions of ourselves. It is an idea that has proved rich pickings for comic-book adventures, where peril can come from any available universe and there is always a chance of confronting a doppelganger, but German director Timm Kröger has returned to the theory – which dates back to the 1950s – to explore how mysterious, sinister and terrifyingly vast a proposal it really is. This is a theory of everything where everything – that familiar word – is infinite. Where nothing, in fact, is ever going to be “everything.”

The...

Imagine that one of Hitchcock’s villains — say, the guy missing the tip of a pinkie in “The 39 Steps,” or the shrink who runs the institute in “Spellbound” — did not simply come from a place of murderous intent but from a different place altogether, perhaps another dimension. Imagine that villain’s supranatural malfeasance backdropped by jagged mountains, captured in black-and-white so crisp it could cut, and widescreen frames so wide whole Alpine ranges fit comfortably inside them. And imagine it all unfolding to a deliberately overpowering score, like Bernard Herrman and Scott Walker conceived a baby during a sonic boom. Now you are somewhere near Timm Kröger’s superbly crafted “The Universal Theory” an overlong but enjoyable metaphysical thriller that delivers pastiche so meticulous it becomes its own source of supremely cinematic pleasure.

It is 1962, in the mountainous Grisons canton of Switzerland. The Cold War is at its coldest, its...

Have you heard of a movie about a brilliant quantum physicist who travels to a remote location so he can test a groundbreaking theory that could change the world forever? It’s shot in breathtaking black-and-white, and features Nazis and a doomed romance.

If you’re thinking of Oppenheimer, you’re wrong by a good two decades (in terms of the time setting), as well as a good hundred million dollars (in terms of budget). And yet, like a smaller, distant cousin to the Christopher Nolan blockbuster, German director Timm Kröger’s The Theory of Everything (Die Theorie Von Allem) is also an artfully made, ambitious period piece where reality sometimes bends to the laws of modern physics.

However, the similarities end there. Nolan’s movie was science-fact, remaining as close to historic events as technically possible. Kröger’s second feature is more of a genre-jumping experiment, combining Hollywood sci-fi...

Black-and-white genre hopping thriller is second feature from German director Kröger.

German director Timm Kröger’s black-and-white genre-hopping thriller The Theory of Everything has scored key territory sales ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Paris-based sales outfit Charades has sold the Swiss Alps-set feature to UFO Distribution in France, La Aventura Audiovisual in Spain and Moviesinspired in Italy. Weirdwave will release the film in Greece, Pictureworks has taken rights for India and Megacom will distribute in ex-Yugoslavia. Neue Visionen will release The Theory of Everything in Germany on October 26 and Film Coopi has Swiss rights.

This looks unique. German distributor Neue Visionen Filmverleih has revealed a first look trailer for the indie film Die Theorie von Allem, which translates directly to The Theory of Everything. Yep, it's the same title as the Stephen Hawking film from 2014, and it's also about theoretical physics and scientists. But with a more mysterious, Hitchcockian twist. Set in 1962. A physics congress in the Alps. An Iranian guest. A mysterious pianist. A bizarre cloud in the sky and a booming mystery under the mountain. It's "a quantum mechanical thriller in black & white." The distributor also adds more buzz: with "Timm Kröger, everything is there that makes for great cinematic art in the best Hitchcock tradition. Cast with a fantastic ensemble and interspersed with a phenomenal soundtrack, The Theory of Everything is a brilliant film noir about the contingency of our world, in which much is possible and hardly anything is necessary.

Timm Kröger’s second film is a German-language psychological thriller.

Charades and Anonymous Content are partnering on sales for German director Timm Kröger’s The Theory of Everything ahead of its world premiere in competition in Venice, announced today.

The genre-blending black and white thriller set in the world of quantum mechanics is Kroger’s second feature. Set in the Swiss Alps, it is about a physicist attending an international convention where an Iranian scientist plans to unveil a groundbreaking new theory in quantum mechanics. Intrigued by a mysterious jazz pianist who seems to know intimate details about him, he...

Cologne-based sales house will bring three new titles to EFM.

Cologne-based Media Luna New Films has snapped up international rights to three new titles: Austrian feature All Will Be Revealed, German concentration camp-themed drama Schlamassel and Mexican drugs thriller The Route To El Jardin.

All Will Be Revealed is directed by Peter Keglevic and is an historical drama loosely based on the novel by Austrian writer and actor, August Schmölzer. In the film, set in 1964, a man returns to his hometown looking for his childhood sweetheart but discovers a dark and corrupt world.

The cast is led by Harald Schrott,...

German director Timm Kröger’s mystery thriller “The Universal Theory” has started shooting at the ski resort of St. Jakob in Defereggen, Austria. The film’s first image has been released.

The cast is led by Jan Bülow, who starred in “Lindenberg! Mach dein Ding,” and Olivia Ross, a Paris-born, British actress whose credits include History’s “Knightfall,” Netflix’s “The Old Guard,” and the BBC’s “War and Peace” and “Killing Eve.”

Kröger previously directed Venice Critics Week entry “The Council of Birds.” The screenplay was written by Roderick Warich (“The Trouble with Being Born”) and Kröger.

Shot in Cinemascope, in black and white, the 1960s set story unfolds against the backdrop of the Alps. Johannes, a doctor of physics, travels with his doctoral supervisor to a scientific congress in the Alps. A series of mysterious incidents occur on site. He meets his femme fatale, Karin, a jazz pianist...

A Place Called Dignity is the latest drama to take on the abusive horrors that happened behind the gated, religious doors of the Colony of Dignity in Chile, which has also in recent years been the focus of Emma Watson-starrer The Colony, animation The Wolf House, documentary Songs Of Repression and Netflix documentary series A Sinister Sect: Colonia Dignida.

Matias Rojas Valencia uses an outsider, 12-year-old Pablo, as our surrogate into this German community whose outward face of singing and industriousness hid a decades long rule by abuser its leader Paul Schäfer (Hanns Zischler), who also had a sideline in torture and disappearances for the Pinochet regime.

For little Pablo and his mother, the chance to become the first scholarship child in the community seems like a real opportunity as Schäfer - referred to in the community as "permanent uncle" - says he'll be given an...

Matias Rojas Valencia directed feature about the infamous Colonia Dignidad commune.

New Europe Film Sales is launching sales at San Sebastian this week on Quijote Films’ upcoming Chilean drama A Place Called Dignity after the parties finalised a deal in Toronto.

Matias Rojas Valencia directed the project, which is in post-production and takes place at Colonia Dignidad, the notorious commune in southern Chile founded in 1961 by former Nazi soldier Paul Schäfer that housed a cult and where many children were sexually abused. It also served as an interrogation centre during the Augusto Pinochet regime.

The fictitious events in the film centre on Pablo,...

Director Agnieszka Holland pulls off a difficult task — her true-life Holocaust tale neither trivializes the horror nor glamorizes individualized victims at the expense of the big picture. Marco Hofschneider is the inexperienced German teenager who by strange quirks of fate becomes a staunch Stalinist in a Communist school, then a Nazi war hero and candidate for Hitler Youth honors and adoption by a Nazi officer… if he can avoid being uncovered as a Jew in hiding. It sounds tasteless but it’s not — the true story of Solomon Perel reveals the ‘fluidity’ of ideology when survival is on the line. Our young hero must keep ‘becoming’ what he pretends to be. With André Wilms, René Hofschneider and Julie Delpy as a rabid Hitlerite.

Europa Europa

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 985

1990 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 9, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Marco Hofschneider, André Wilms, René Hofschneider, Julie Delpy,...

Wim Wenders's The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972) is showing January 7 – February 5, 2019 on Mubi in the United Kingdom as part of the series First Films First and Wim Wenders: Journeys of No Return.I“For a moment the film was a smell, a taste in the mouth, a tingle in the hands, a draught felt through a wet shirt, a children’s book that you haven’t seen since you were five years old, a blink of the eye.

It’s like walking out of the subway into broad daylight.”—Wim Wenders, Van Morrison 1970 IIIn the May 1970 edition of the magazine Filmkritik, Wim Wenders wrote in a review titled "Emotion Pictures slowly rockin’ on" of a Grateful Dead album: "Slow and calm and melancholy movements and images." That same year he shot with Robby Müller his first feature Summer in the City—his graduation film—about a young man named Franz,...

Nö

German director Dietrich Brüggemann has commenced shooting his sixth feature Nö, produced by Martin Heisler and Gabriele Simon for Flare Film. Starring the director’s sister, Anna Brüggemann (who also co-wrote) as the lead, the film also features Alexander Khuon, Isolde Barth, Hanns Zischler, Rudiger Vogler (of Wim Wenders’ Road Trilogy) and Petra Schmidt-Schaller. Brüggemann’s usual Dp Alexander Sass is lensing the feature. Brüggemann’s breakout was his 2014 feature Stations of the Cross (review), which competed in Berlin and took home the Silver Bear for Best Script as well as the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. His last feature, 2015’s Heil, competed in Karlovy Vary.…...

Santiago De Chile – Leading Chilean shingle Quijote Films is in production on the Alfredo Castro-toplined thriller “White on White,” set in Chile’s Tierra de Fuego and the Canary Islands, Spain. France’s La Pomme Hurlante and Germany’s Kindschafterfilm have also boarded as co-producers.

Quijote Films producer Giancarlo Nasi, who just returned from a grueling three-week location shoot in Tierra de Fuego where temperatures plummeted to minus 20 Celsius (- 4 Fahrenheit), is moving production next to the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands which also boasts other-worldly landscapes. This is Quijote Film’s first co-production with Spain. Tenerife-based El Viaje Prods. co-produces the drama set at the turn of the 19th century. Chilean-Spanish filmmaker Theo Court (“Ocaso”) is directing the film from a screenplay he co-penned with Samuel M. Delgado.

Castro (“From Afar”) plays a man commissioned to photograph the wedding of the owner of a large estate seized from indigenous people.

X-Men spinoff and Trainspotting sequel to play Out of Competition.

A further 13 films have been invited to screen in the Competition and Berlinale Special section at the 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.

The festival has added commercial clout to its Out Of Competition lineup in the shape of Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting and X-Men spinoff Logan.

There are also competition berths for new films by Hong Sangsoo, Thomas Arslan, Volker Schlöndorff, Sabu, Álex de la Iglesia and Josef Hader.

Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha’s latest, Viceroy’s House, will have its world premiere out of competition at the festival. Starring Hugh Bonneville alongside Gillian Anderson, the period drama set in 1947 India depicts Lord Mountbatten, the man charged with handing India back to its people.

Also having its world premiered out of competition will be Álex de la Iglesia’s The Bar, a comedy-thriller about a group of strangers who get...

After an initial line-up that included Aki Kaurismäki‘s The Other Side of Hope, Oren Moverman‘s Richard Gere-led The Dinner, Sally Potter‘s The Party, and Agnieszka Holland‘s Spoor, the Berlin International Film Festival have added more anticipated premieres. Highlights include one of two (maybe three) new Hong Sang-soo films this year, On the Beach at Night Alone, along with Volker Schlöndorff‘s Return to Montauk with Stellan Skarsgård and Nina Hoss, as well as the high-profile world premiere of James Mangold‘s Logan and the international premiere of Danny Boyle‘s T2: Trainspotting.

With Paul Verhoeven serving as jury president for the 67th edition of the festival, check out the new additions below.

Competition

Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (On the Beach at Night Alone)

South Korea

By Hong Sangsoo (Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, Right Now, Wrong Then)

With Kim Minhee, Seo Younghwa, Jung Jaeyoung, Moon Sungkeun,...

A major talent of the New German Cinema finds his footing out on the open highway, in a trio of intensely creative pictures that capture the pace and feel of living off the beaten path. All three star Rüdiger Vogler, an actor who could be director Wim Wenders' alter ego. Wim Wenders' The Road Trilogy Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 813 1974-1976 / B&W and Color / 1:66 widescreen / 113, 104, 176 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 30, 2016 / 99.95 Starring Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer, Yetta Rottländer; Hannah Schygulla, Nasstasja Kinski, Hans Christian Blech, Ivan Desny; Robert Zischler. Cinematography Robby Müller, Martin Schäfer Film Editor Peter Przygodda, Barbara von Weltershausen Original Music Can, Jürgen Knieper, Axel Linstädt. Directed by Wim Wenders

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...

In his 1969 short film 3 American LP’s, the 24-year-old Wim Wenders, in the kind of feat of earnestness that can befit a young man, attempts to match his two greatest interests” America’s landscapes and its rock-and-roll music. If we’re to pick perhaps the most endearing eye-roller from this “rockist” mission statement, one can look no further than Wenders describing a Creedence Clearwater Revival album as being “like chocolate.”

But this isn’t necessarily an atypical moment in his filmography, as Wenders has always skirted the line of, for lack of a better word, corniness — if not just telegraphing his influences to at-times-obnoxious degrees, also with a kind of sentimentality both formally and politically speaking. Consider Wings of Desire‘s glossy look, which could so easily be reconfigured into a perfume-commercial aesthetic, or even just the title of one of his later, forgotten films; The End of Violence.

Yet...

Films include Shepherds and Butchers with Steve Coogan; Don’t Call Me Son from Anna Muylaert; and a documentary about a director and actress who were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il.

The Berlinale (Feb 11-21) has completed the selection for this year’s Panorama strand, comprising 51 films from 33 countries. A total of 34 fiction features comprise the main programme and Panorama Special while a further 17 titles will screen in Panorama Dokumente.

A total of 33 films are world premieres, nine are international premieres and nine European premieres. The 30th Teddy Award is also being celebrated with an anniversary series of 17 films.

Notable titles include Shepherds and Butchers from South Africa, which is set toward the end of Apartheid and stars Steve Coogan as a hotshot lawyer who faces his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men. What ensues is a charge against the death penalty itself, in a case...

Films include Shepherds and Butchers, starring Steve Coogan; Don’t Call Me Son from Anna Muylaert; and a documentary about a director and actress who were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il and forced to make films.

The Berlinale (Feb 11-21) has completed the selection for this year’s Panorama strand, comprising 51 films from 33 countries. A total of 34 fiction features comprise the main programme and Panorama Special while a further 17 titles will screen in Panorama Dokumente.

A total of 33 films are world premieres, nine are international premieres and nine European premieres. The 30th Teddy Award is also being celebrated with an anniversary series of 17 films.

Notable titles include Shepherds and Butchers from South Africa, which is set toward the end of Apartheid and stars Steve Coogan as a hotshot lawyer faces his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men. What ensues is a charge against the death penalty itself...

'Munich' movie cover 'Munich' movie review: Steven Spielberg tackles political time-space continuum in wildly uneven but ultimately satisfying thriller Alternately intriguing and irritating, thought-provoking and banal, subtle and patronizing, the biggest surprise about Steven Spielberg's Munich is that it – however grudgingly – works. The film, which Spielberg himself has referred to as a "prayer for peace," follows five men contracted by the Israeli government to avenge the massacre of that country's athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Sizable chunks of this political thriller with a Message (capital "M") are simplistically written, clumsily acted, and handled with the director's notoriously heavy touch, but the old adage – blood begets blood – even if somewhat muddled, is too timely not to make an impact. Complex 'Munich' movie plot Based on George Jonas' 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, whose veracity has been questioned in some quarters, Munich begins as...

Shortly after being nominated for a Razzie redeemer award for her work in Camp X-Ray, we get another example of Kristen Stewart as a great actress in the upcoming Clouds of Sils Maria. The first domestic trailer has debuted for this drama, which looks at aging in the entertainment business, and stars an ensemble of talent that includes Juliette Binoche, Chloe Moretz, Brady Corbet and Johnny Flynn.

At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena.

She departs with her assistant (Kristen Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps.

Following the international trailer that debuted last month, another trailer has debuted for the upcoming drama Clouds of Sils Maria. Juliette Binoche portrays Maria Enders, an aging actress who is asked to perform in the play that made her a star two decades prior. Instead of playing the young girl Sigrid, she is asked to play the older Helena, with a young starlet (Chloe Moretz) taking over the Sigrid role. Kristen Stewart stars as Helena's assistant, who travels to a remote area known as Sils Maria to help Helena prepare for career defining moment.

Brady Corbet, Johnny Flynn and Claire Tran co-star in writer director Olivier Assayas' upcoming drama from IFC Films, which doesn't have a domestic release date in place at this time.

At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago.

An iconic actress is forced to reflect on her career when a young starlet is given the role that made her famous in the first trailer for IFC Films' Clouds of Sils Maria, which debuts at the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow, May 23. Juliette Binoche stars as Maria Enders, who takes a role in the play that made her a star two decades ago. Instead of playing Sigrid, a young girl who drives her boss Helena to suicide, she is playing Helena, with a scandalous Hollywood starlet Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Moretz) taking over the Sigrid role. Kristen Stewart also stars as Maria's assistant in director Olivier Assayas drama, which doesn't have a domestic release date lined up at this time. In addition to the trailer, we also have the poster and seven photos.

Clouds of Sils Maria: Movie Pictures GalleryClouds of Sils Maria: Movie Pictures Gallery 1Clouds of Sils...

Clouds of Sils Maria

Director: Olivier Assayas

Writer: Olivier Assayas

Producers: Karl Baumgartner, Charles Gillibert, Thanassis Karathanos, Jean-Louis Porchet, Gérard Ruey

U.S. Distributor: IFC Films

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz, Johnny Flynn, Lars Eidinger, Hanns Zischler, Brady Corbet

We’re among the clan that think that 2008′s Summer Hours turned out to be a seminal film for Olivier Assayas and it’s a reteaming with the illustrious Juliette Binoche, who in this second time out, basically challenged her fellow Parisian to write, and then direct, a female character study that truthfully might be her most chiseled part in ages. An estrogen-filled, possibly Bergmanesque project on paper, we get the hunch that this not only deals with ageism and a certain level-minded jealousy of youth, but it’s a punk rock interpretation of an actresses’ shelf-life.

Gist: At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche...

Kristen Stewart: ‘Sils Maria’ set photos Kristen Stewart co-stars opposite Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) and Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass, the upcoming Carrie remake) in Olivier Assayas’ Sils Maria, a psychological drama currently being filmed in Germany and Switzerland. A Kristen Stewart fan site on Twitter has posted a series of images showing Stewart, wearing a jacket and glasses, on the Sils Maria set. Warning: Be extremely careful when visiting the photo site where the Kristen Stewart images are stored. I’ve removed the link from this post because twice when clicking on the images, popups attempted to install phishing software. (Now, please scroll down to check out the "full-body" shot of the bespectacled Kristen Stewart in Sils Maria.) Set in the Swiss area known as Sils Maria, writer-director Olivier Assayas’ movie tells the story of a middle-aged former stage star, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche, in a...

“Film Criticism no longer has any meaning, it is reality we must analyze in a cinematic way.” – Hanns Zischler

There’s nothing more inducive of genuine pathos than a man who is bored with a franchise. Inevitably, he starts skeezin’ “his” subordinate labor, loses the things that are dear to him, and suffers in multiple paternity suits. Michael Bay is bored. How awesomely pathetic! What sort of industrial filmmaker are you, man? Yamada Yoji made forty-eight Tora-san movies, pal, and you can’t even push out three without whining like the free-spirited Wesleyan bluestocking you are in your crippled soul. You’ve even lost the truest dear, Armond White: “Now, there’s no poetry; just idiotic, unintelligible machine combat. While it easily out-astonishes Chris Nolan’s glum Inception, it defames the action-movie tradition and embarrasses the talent that makes Bay a great filmmaker.” Too much wild ink spilled in the...

Daniel Craig, Eric Bana, Hanns Zischler, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ciaran Hinds in Steven Spielberg's Munich Munich Review: Part I On the positive side, for the first time since Bruce feasted along the New England coast Steven Spielberg has made a film in which the strings are only sporadically visible. The fact that he had to rush through production in order to have Munich ready by year's end — this is reportedly the first film he has directed without relying on storyboards — helped to give this philosophical actioner an edge it might otherwise have lacked. Munich's technical aspects are generally first-rate, while John Williams provides what could well be both the most understated and the most effective score of his career. And since the film in question is a thriller, Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn keep the action moving at a steady pace. Its nearly three-hour running time notwithstanding, Munich is never dull.

In one of those serendipitous quirks of scheduling that festival-going sometimes throws up, I saw what are currently my favourite male and females performances among 2010's new films in consecutive screenings on the final Saturday of the Viennale.

Attentive readers of this site will already be familiar with my enthusiasm for Mišel Matičević and his work in Thomas Arslan's In the Shadows(Im Schatten)—itself one of the year's most outstanding world-premieres—which I wrote about in my dispatches from the Berlinale back in February.

Over eight months later I had my second viewing of the picture, an absorbingly low-key, stripped down neo-noir that showcases the strengths of what's become known as the "Berlin School," built four-square around the very precise, very physical, largely wordless turn from Matičević ("stone-faced," according to Variety's enthusiastic belated review, published in the wake of the picture's early October screening at the Vancouver Film Festival.

In a 20-minute interview that is one of the supplements to this excellent DVD edition (a Region 2 Pal UK set from the label Axiom) of Kings of the Road, a contemporary Wenders considers this film and all of his films prior and subsequent to it, and tries to tie them together. "All these films have in common," he says (in German), "is not a theme, but what ties them together, from this one, to Buena Vista Social Club, to Until The End Of The World, is the question: 'How should one live?''' In this case, for one of its characters, Robert (Hanns Zischler), the question might better be put, "How can one live?" He has driven his car into a river, and instead of drowning, he is left bereft of personal possessions. Including the car. Wenders knows his Kristofferson, that is, that freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Director: Ole Christian Madsen Writers: Lars Andersen, Ole Christian Madsen Starring: Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade, Peter Mygind, Mille Hoffmeyer Lehfeldt, Christian Berkel, Hanns Zischler, Claus Riis Ostergaard, Lars Mikkelsen, Flemming Enevold, Jesper Christensen The place is Copenhagen, the year is 1944. Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Citron’s (Mads Mikkelsen) moral compasses are spinning out of control as they go on a strategic killing spree of Danes who are collaborating with Nazis occupiers, then straight for the jugular of the Nazis themselves. Citron begins the film as a family man; he is Flame’s sidekick, but he is literally just along for the drive (a stressful job nonetheless causing him to sweat profusely, drink heavily and gulp down pills to quell his nerves). However, it is not long before the lunacy of war takes hold of Citron and never ever lets him go. Even Flame, who is an unwavering killing...

A few films will be pulling out the stop when Toronto unfurls early next month. The list of gala presentations is interesting: Caroline Link’s A Year Ago in Winter; starring Karoline Herfurth, Josef Bierbichler, Corinna Harfouch, Hanns Zischler and Mišel Maticevic Toa Fraser’s Dean Spanley, starring Peter O’Toole, Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill and Bryan Brown Jodie Markell’s The [...]...

COLOGNE, Germany -- Caroline Link, a foreign-language Oscar winner in 2003 with "Nowhere in Africa", is returning to Germany for her new film, "Im Winter ein Jahr" (A Year in Winter), an adaptation of the Scott Campbell novel "Aftermath".

The project, which will be produced by Constantin Film and Bavaria Filmproduktion, tells the story of a painter who develops a special bond with a young woman whose portrait he is commissioned to paint.

Link wrote the screenplay to "Im Winter", which was initially conceived as her English-language debut. Instead, the film will be shot in German this year and star German actors Josef Bierbichler, Karoline Herfurth, Corinna Harfouch and Hanns Zischler.

Constantin production head Martin Moszkowicz will produce together with Bavaria's Uschi Reich.

Constantin Film will release the drama in Germany.

Steven Spielberg successfully enters Costa-Gavras territory with "Munich", a thought-provoking, highly charged inquiry into the political, moral and historical ramifications of terrorism and the effort to combat this scourge. While "Munich" does not lack for action and intrigue -- indeed it brims with it -- Spielberg deliberately mutes the tone of these events so the film can address the ethics of counterterrorism, in this case assassinations.

The problem faced by Universal Picture, which co-produced the film with DreamWorks and will distribute, is twofold: On the domestic side, the company must market "Munich", a film without stars, as a Spielberg film, yet it's the least Spielbergian film he has ever made. Secondly, overseas marketing must counter suspicions that a controversial film about terrorism made by an American Jewish director will have an anti-Palestinian bias. It doesn't, but we're talking about perceptions here.

The film mostly concerns the aftermath of the terrifying hostage taking and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The story, written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth (based on the book "Vengeance" by George Jonas), follows the somewhat fictionalized efforts of a secret team of five Israelis stationed in Europe to track down and kill 11 Palestinians suspected of planning the Munich attack. The Munich event itself is doled out in dark, gritty flashbacks throughout the movie, but these are seen as a recurring nightmare that drives and haunts the unit's leader.

Eric Bana plays Avner Kauffman, a Mossad officer and former bodyguard to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He is personally selected by Meir (Lynn Cohen in a fine impersonation) to lead the assassins. So great is the secrecy that he must resign his position, virtually abandon his pregnant wife (Ayelet Zurer) and operate beyond the knowledge and supervision of his bosses, particularly the morally equivocating hard-ass Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush).

The team is a surprisingly motley crew. Grimly determined South African hit man Steve (Daniel Craig) is maybe too eager to kill. Meticulous Belgian toymaker Robert Mathieu Kassovitz) has the task of assembling bombs. The German-Jew Hans (Hanns Zischler), whose cover is an antique dealer, proves an excellent forger of documents. Cleanup man Carl (Ciaran Hinds) must worry that targets are clean and no collateral damage ensues.

At first, the movie takes place in the familiar movie world of international intrigue and revenge melodrama. Gradually, though, an unease fills the scenes of the team shadowing and liquidating their prey. The victims are not what one might expect: a scholarly writer in Rome, who translates Arab literature into Italian

a dignified professor in Paris, living a comfortable bourgeois life with his family. The realization hits some of the killers that no one has seen one iota of proof that these targets had anything to do with Munich.

Certainly, no one today needs reminding how government assurances and intelligence can prove woefully wrong if not disingenuous. Indeed a new book about Israel's revengeful response to Munich claims the Israelis largely got the wrong men.

"All this blood comes back to us," complains one assassin. The unintended consequence for these men is that they are now haunted by their own bloody deeds. Worse, with these illegal acts, one argues, Israel loses its sense of righteousness. How can anyone now tell them apart from their enemies?

There is even another price. For every death, Black September, the terrorist Group Behind Munich, strikes back with acts often more horrific, at least in terms of body count, than Munich. Finally, the hunters find themselves among the hunted as members of Avner's team are killed one by one.

Political context comes in a telling sequence in which Avner, in his pose as a European communist, discusses the Palestinian issue with a Palestinian terrorist, who is unaware of Avner's true identity. In this calm discussion, it becomes evident that two tribes claim the same land with equal passion and that each has genuine grievances against the other. Each is willing to answer acts of violence with more acts of violence, perpetuating a deadly cycle that will never cease without the intercession of peacemakers, a group in short supply in the Middle East, then and now.

One fascinating aspect to the group's tracking down targets is their total reliance on a shady French contact, Louis Mathieu Amalric). He along with his deceptively affable father (Michael Lonsdale) are equal-opportunity buyers and sellers of information. It takes awhile for Avner to realize that nothing prevents this charming family from selling out his team.

Spielberg stages the killings to maximize suspense without resorting to elaborate cinematic tricks. Killings and gunfights are messy, even botched. Characters are ordinary mortals with little emphasis on heroics. Avner's primary concern is a wife and daughter, whom he has spirted out of Israel to Brooklyn so he can visit them occasionally.

Locations in various countries are kept matter of fact rather than exotic. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's smooth, retro style moves the film into darker, more disturbing colors as the killings continue. Designer Rick Carter never shows off period details. Michael Kahn's editing builds suspense in the individual sequences in a Hitchcockian manner as John Williams' muted score quickens the pulse.

The film ends as two men part ways in Brooklyn. The towers of the World Trade Center dominate the skyline behind them.

MUNICH

Universal Pictures

Universal and DreamWorks Pictures presentan Amblin Entertainment-Kennedy/Marshall-Barry Mendel production

in association with Alliance Atlantis Communications

Credits:

Director: Steven Spielberg

Screenwriters: Tony Kushner, Eric Roth

Based on the book "Vengeance" by: George Jonas

Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Barry Mendel, Steven Spielberg, Colin Wilson

Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski

Production designer: Rick Carter

Music: John Williams

Costumes: Joanna Johnston

Editor: Michael Kahn

Cast:

Avner: Eric Bana

Steve: Daniel Craig

Carl: Ciaran Hinds

Robert: Mathieu Kassovitz

Hans: Hanns Zischler

Daphna: Ayelet Zurer

Ephraim: Geoffrey Rush

Avner's mother: Gila Almagor

Papa: Michael Lonsdale

Louis: Mathieu Amalric

Andreas: Moritz Bleibtreu

MPAA rating R

Running time -- 167 minutes...

Steven Spielberg has recruited Australian actor Eric Bana to star in his new movie focusing on Israeli retribution following the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The Troy hunk will play the leading Israeli secret service agent alongside compatriot Geoffrey Rush, whose role has yet to be confirmed. Palestinian terrorist group Black September's attack left 11 Israeli athletes dead - and the Saving Private Ryan director is keen to tackle the sensitive subject in a bid to understand the troubles plaguing Israel to this day. He says, "Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms. By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff we find ourselves in today." Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner has written the screenplay for Spielberg's project, and actors Daniel Craig, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ciaran Hinds and Hanns Zischler have already signed up to appear in the hard-hitting thriller. Following the bloody Munich massacre, then Israeli premier Golda Meir order secret service agents to hunt down the terrorists responsible and eliminate them.