Notícias

The San Sebastian film festival has cherry-picked the best of Cannes’ competition lineup for its Perlak section this year.

Virtually every film that scooped up an award in Cannes, from Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (grand prize), Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (special jury prize) and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (best screenplay) to Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora, will screen in the Spanish festival’s sidebar, and compete for San Sebastian’s audience awards.

Jacques Audiard’s transgender crime musical Emilia Pérez, which won Cannes’ jury prize and the best actress honors for its ensemble cast, will open the Perlak section on Sept. 20.

Other Cannes titles, including Andrea Arnold’s Bird, Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, Parthenope from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, and Francis Ford Coppola’s divisive opus Megalopolis, will also screen in the Perlak section. As will...

Monica Bellucci with Anne-Katrin Titze on the Maria Callas Yves Saint Laurent dress she wore in Yannis Dimolitsas and Tom Volf’s Maria Callas: Letters And Memoirs: “This dress really brings me luck.”

On the afternoon before a private screening of Yannis Dimolitsas and Tom Volf’s Maria Callas: Letters And Memoirs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Monica Bellucci spoke about the connection she feels to the woman she portrayed on stage, working with women directors, including Kaouther Ben Hania (Oscar-nominated Best International Feature The Man Who Sold His Skin) and Rebecca Miller (The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee), her daughter Deva Cassel, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea, and the magic of the Maria Callas Yves Saint Laurent dress that brings her luck.

Monica Bellucci on Maria Callas: “The moment that is so incredible to me is when she is singing Carmen in Hamburg in 1962.” Photo:...

MK2 Films has come on board “Louis Armstrong: The Cause of Happiness,” a feature documentary exploring the many faces of the jazz music icon, and set against the backdrop of the social, cultural and political milestones of U.S. 20th century history.

Now in pre-production, “Louis Armstrong: The Cause of Happiness” is directed by Thibaut de Longeville, whose credits include the documentaries “Just for Kicks” and “The Art of Blending” with The Roots and Q-Tip. The film is co-written by Emmanuel Parent, author of “Great Black Music” and “Jazz Power.”

The documentary is being made in collaboration with the Louis Armstrong Foundation to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. As such, it will include hundreds of hours of exclusive material, including Armstrong’s personal audio recordings about his life and times, which he recorded in the privacy of his own home and on the road over the last 15 years of his life.

Launched just over 50 years ago by Marin Karmitz and now headed by his sons, Nathanael and Elisha, Paris-based MK2 films accomplished a double deed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Not only does it have five movies playing in competition for the second consecutive year, it represents in international markets three of the four female-directed films competing, Mati Diop with “Atlantics,” Justine Triet’s “Sybil” and Celine Sciamma with “Portrait of a Young Lady on Fire.”

Aside from the competition, MK2 also has Monia Chokri’s “A Brother’s Love” and Danielle Lessovitz’s “Port Authority” playing in Un Certain Regard.

Nathanael Karmitz and Juliette Schrameck, the managing director of MK2, said the company was not following any quota or positive discrimination to ramp up their roster of female-directed films but were simply drawn to the originality and quality of the projects.

“Three of the four women directors in...

Paris-based MK2 films, which has five movies in competition at Cannes for the second consecutive year, has come on board to co-produce and sell internationally Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s next movie, “The Worst Person in the World,” along with a pair of feature documentaries: “Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful” and Jean-Stéphane Bron’s “The Brain.”

“The Worst Person in the World” will be the closing chapter of Trier’s “Oslo Trilogy,” which includes his feature debut, “Reprise,” and “Oslo, August 31st,” which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

Trier’s credits include “Louder Than Bombs” with Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert, which competed in Cannes. His latest film, “Thelma,” played at Toronto and was the Norwegian submission for foreign-language film Oscar in 2017.

Written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, “The Worst Person in the World” is a modern dramedy about the quest for love and meaning in contemporary Oslo.

Maria Callas. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

In many ways, American-born soprano Maria Callas’ life was operatic, with plenty of triumph and tragedy. Early in Maria By Callas, we see Maria Callas being interviewed by television host David Frost, as she describes her life being divided into two parts, a professional self she calls Callas and a personal self she calls Maria. Maria Callas was a fabulously famous opera star and icon of the mid-20th century who embodied the word diva, and also an intriguing international celebrity avidly covered by tabloid media. Maria By Callas allows the singer herself to set the record straight on personal and professional gossip.

Maria Callas was the most acclaimed soprano of her time but she was nothing like the stereotype of an opera singer – you know, the heavy woman in elaborate costume standing stiffly while singing. Tall, slim, with large eyes and strong regal features,...

Maria By Callas director Tom Volf at Bar Fiori in Langham Place on Cecil Beaton and Maria Callas: "They had photo shoots together. It's so interesting to notice all those people who were part of the same era." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second half of my conversation with Tom Volf, the director of Maria By Callas and author of Maria By Callas: In Her Own Words, the two sides of the coin of Maria Callas were explored. Callas working on Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea, why her favourite role is Norma, calling her toy poodles "my babies", Lisa Immordino Vreeland's Love, Cecil, Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite, and Kevyn Aucoin transforming Isabella Rossellini into Maria Callas as seen in Tiffany Bartok's Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story, all came up, taking us into a kind of time travel back to the golden age.

Maria Callas...

Star-driven specialties mostly took a pause this weekend, though the big ticket awards-release Friday, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs from Netflix, had a courtesy theatrical release in a few Landmark theater locations, giving the Coen brothers release the watermarks of an awards release.

The focus is still on its core streaming service, so box office numbers are not released by Netflix. But a quick check at the theater website shows the musical-Western, starring Liam Neeson, James Franco, and Zoe Kazan, played in smaller houses. So the theatrical experience for this title will be for a very select NY and L.A. coastal crowd, and likely not a big box office number. But that’s how it was designed. Some of the other big fall releases will follow suit, with symbolic theatricals via Netflix, including Alfonso Cuarón’s amazing Roma and Susanne Bier’s anticipated Bird Box.

On the actual specialty theatrical release side this weekend,...

Theatrical documentaries are a risky financial proposition at best. Few have major theatrical runs. However, 2018 saw several exceptional releases garner multimillion-dollar grosses domestically, demonstrating the genre’s cyclical ability to appeal and compete in a crowded field.

Five documentaries are among 2018’s top 100 box office grossers: Focus Features’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” ($22.6 million), Magnolia Pictures’ “Rbg” ($14 million), Neon’s “Three Identical Strangers” ($12.3 million), Briarcliff Entertainment’s “Fahrenheit 11/9” ($6.3 million) and the still-in-release “Free Solo” ($3.6 million) from National Geographic Documentary Film.

“In 1986, when I began in the business, I felt like I’d missed the parade,” says Davis Guggenheim (Oscar winner for “An Inconvenient Truth”), producer of the 2018 Sundance documentary Grand Jury prizewinner “The Price of Free,” which chronicles Indian Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s crusade against child labor and slavery.

The film was co-financed through his Concordia Studio shingle and Participant Media and picked up by YouTube Originals. “I...

Joel Edgerton’s drama Boy Erased from Focus Features handily topped the weekend’s slate of specialty releases. The Telluride and Toronto debut starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Edgerton grossed a robust $220K in five New York and Los Angeles locations. It averaged an estimated $44K, the thirteenth-highest opening weekend per-theater average of 2018 as of Sunday morning. Focus reported a strong Friday to Saturday boost.

Aviron Pictures bowed director Matthew Heineman’s drama A Private War in several theaters, grossing $72K Friday to Sunday for an $18K PTA. Sony Classics opened first-time director Tom Volf’s documentary Maria By Callas in four U.S. theaters, grossing $50,891, for a solid $12,723 average. Together with its Canadian runs, the New York Film Festival title grossed $94,280 from 16 locations for a $5,893 PTA.

Neon opened Bodied in 14 locations, grossing $50,528 in 14 locations. Doc Searching For Ingmar Bergman from Oscilloscope played an exclusive run...

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is heading for a rhapsodic debut from 4,000 North American locations with an estimated $46 million.

The Fox biopic starring Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury earned $18.4 million Friday. Bryan Singer directed the film from Anthony McCarten’s screenplay. Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, and Mike Myers also star.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is sitting at a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an A CinemaScore.

Christmastime pic “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” should debut in second with about $18 million from 3,766 domestic sites. That marks a disappointing start for the Disney film, which stars Keira Knightley and has an estimated production budget of well over $100 million.

Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston directed the film, with Ashleigh Powell writing the script. Mackenzie Foy, Eugenio Derbez, Matthew Macfadyen, Richard E. Grant, Misty Copeland, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman also star. “Nutcracker” follows a young girl who must...

Tom Volf on finding the interview by David Frost with Maria Callas: "[It] was a real key to understanding how she had to cope ..."

Tom Volf's standout Maria By Callas on Maria Callas, with the voice of Joyce Didonato screened as a highlight in the Spotlight on Documentary programme of the 56th New York Film Festival last month. Personal letters and unpublished memoirs were voiced by Fanny Ardant when the film came out in France at the end of last year.

Maria By Callas director Tom Volf at Langham Place in New York: "The duality between Maria and Callas, that is a thread throughout her life." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The documentary fashionably transports you into the world of a great artist with recordings from radio and clips from television interviews, including with David Frost, Edward R Murrow, and Barbara Walters. Jean Cocteau, Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Catherine Deneuve,...

There was once a more mysterious version of celebrity. The wall that separated a famous artist’s performance from that same artist’s private life was more difficult to scale. Popular singers didn’t routinely executive produce advertorials stuffed with behind-the-scenes footage of themselves: no rehearsal time laid bare, no banal shopping trips, no nervous visit to their personal ear, nose, and throat specialist. Fans didn’t have the immediate access provided by the internet; a star was more or less allowed to keep the public at arm’s length.

Filmmaker Tom Volf reaches into the past to change that in “Maria by Callas,” a lovingly assembled documentary about the life and career of American opera legend Maria Callas, whose voice is considered to be among the greatest of the 20th century. Here, the private Callas is made public.

Curated from live performance footage, television interviews, the singer’s own...

November’s first weekend is usually a crowded one at the Specialty box office, and this year is no different. Lucas Hedges stars with Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and director Joel Edgerton in Boy Erased from Focus Features. Filmmaker Matthew Heineman’s A Private War from Aviron Pictures is the first narrative feature from the director of Oscar-nominated documentary Cartel Land. Starring Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Stanley Tucci and Tom Hollander, the film opens in four locations Friday ahead of a fairly wide roll out. Sony Pictures Classics is opening recent New York Film Festival doc Maria By Callas from first-time director Tom Volf about the legendary opera singer. Neon and YouTube Originals are launching music video veteran Joseph Kahn’s rap battle feature Bodied. And Oscilloscope is opening Margarethe von Trotta’s Searching for Ingmar Bergman with an initial exclusive New York weekend run.

Other limited releases this weekend...

If you want the truth about Greek-American opera star Maria Callas, why not get it straight from the diva’s mouth. That’s the refreshing premise of Maria by Callas, a dazzling documentary from Tom Volf that draws from letters, unpublished memoirs, home movies, family photos, performances (far from audio perfection), journals (read by contemporary opera singer Joyce Didonato) and TV interviews (there’s a doozy with David Frost) that allow Callas to speak — and sing — for herself. No narrator, no talking heads feeding you insights, just the lady letting...

Another day, another fawning documentary about a famous musician. But Tom Volf’s “Maria by Callas” — an obsessive tribute to (and sympathetic examination of) the late opera legend Maria Callas — is of a somewhat different breed than the usual sort. Entirely composed of archival newsreel footage, performance recordings, and rare interview excerpts from when the great “diva” sat down with journalist David Frost in 1970, the film unfolds like a second-hand sketch of a phantom who continues to haunt its director.

Volf highlights Callas’ sentiment that her memoirs “are in the music [she] interprets, the only language [she] really knows,” and he respects that feeling to a fault. This was a woman who was hounded by reporters all over the world, and defined by her relationship with the press; here, she finally gets a chance to speak in her own words. And yet, it would seem as though she only has one thing...

Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Nora Hamzawi star in Olivier Assayas's Non-Fiction (Doubles Vies) with Christa Théret and Pascal Greggory Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Tom Volf's standout Maria By Callas on Maria Callas, with the voice of Joyce Didonato in the Spotlight on Documentary program; Special Events selection Morgan Neville's They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead documentary with Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, and Joseph McBride on the making of Orson Welles's The Other Side Of The Wind; and in the Main Slate Paul Dano's Wildlife, co-written with Zoe Kazan, starring Ed Oxenbould, Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Bill Camp, and Olivier Assayas's Non-Fiction (Doubles Vies) with Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, and Nora Hamzawi round out the four early bird highlights of the 56th New York Film Festival.

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

They’ll Love Me When I...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite and Marielle Heller’s Melissa McCarthy-starrer Can You Ever Forgive Me? will get Centerpiece slots at next month’s Hamptons Film Festival.

The fest released its full line-up today, adding Steve McQueen’s Widows and the East Coast premiere of Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy to the previously announced slate.

Lanthimos’ The Favourite stars Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in the tale of two cousins fighting to be the court favorite of Queen Anne. The film will be the fest’s Friday Centerpiece, while Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? takes the Sunday Centerpiece slot.

The Hamptons fest runs Oct. 4-8.

In addition to the previously announced films, the Narrative Competition films will include the New York Premiere of Yen Tan’s 1985, the U.S. Premiere of Eva Trobisch’s All Good, Ali Abbasi’s Border, the U.S. Premiere of Zsófia Szilágyi’s One Day,...

"An artist develops. You do things by instinct, but we learn, we suffer, we mature. I have to feel what I do." Sony Pictures Classics has released an official Us trailer for a documentary titled Maria by Callas, set to open in Us theaters in November after showing at the New York Film Festival. The film is an intimate look at the life & work of Greek-American opera singer Maria Callas, as told in her own words. "Assembling the material for the film took director Volf four years of painstaking research, which included personal outreach to dozens of Callas's closest friends and associates, who allowed him to share their personal memorabilia in the film. When recordings of Callas's voice aren't available, Joyce Didonato, one of contemporary opera's biggest stars, reads her words." This looks like another fascinating, insightful doc about a truly great artist. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for...

“Maria by Callas,” an adoring profile of the Greek-American opera legend, is a one-sided documentary, using Callas’ own words in journals, letters and interview appearances to narrate her personal history. Yet this is not meant as criticism; it’s only fair that Callas’ voice finally gets heard off the stage, given how much the tabloids reinforced her image as a tempestuous diva, when the real person was much more complicated. First-time director Tom Volf plainly adores Callas — sometimes to a fault — but his film stands as a necessary corrective to decades of bad press. It’s an unalloyed tribute to her as a musical genius who gave all of herself to the public. Opera aficionados will be first in line when Sony Pictures Classics releases the film in early November, but the doc doubles as an accessible primer for the less schooled, too, with an abundance of classic recordings on the soundtrack.

Company details sales on Ash, Asako I & II and Sorry Angel ahead of busy Tiff and New York Film Festival.

Jia Zhangke will present a recut version of his Cannes Palme d’Or contender Ash Is Purest White at its North American premiere in the Masters section of the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 6-16), its Paris-based sales company mk2 films has announced.

The contemporary tale of love and survival, starring Zhao Tao as a small-town bar owner whose passion for a local mobster changes the course of her life, has been trimmed by six minutes, mk2 films has revealed.

Company details sales on Ash, Asako I & II and Sorry Angel ahead of busy Tiff and New York Film Festival.

Jia Zhangke will present a recut version of his Cannes Palme d’Or contender Ash Is Purist White at its North American premiere in the Masters section of the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 6-16), its Paris-based sales company mk2 films has announced.

The contemporary tale of love and survival, starring Zhao Tao as a small-town bar owner whose passion for a local mobster changes the course of her life, has been trimmed by six minutes, mk2 films has revealed.

Friday, August 24

– The Camden International Film Festival has announced the lineup for its 14th edition, including opening-night selection “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.” Morgan Neville’s documentary on Orson Welles kicks off the fest, which takes place September 13–16 and concludes with the Us premiere of the sailing drama “Maiden.”

The full slate is comprised of 37 features, 43 shorts, one episodic series, and 20 virtual-reality and immersive experiences; half of the lineup was directed or co-directed by women. Other standouts include Kahlil Hudson and Alex Jablonski’s “Young Men and Fire,” Lana Wilson’s series “The Cure for Fear,” Jane Gillooly’s “Where the Pavement Ends,” “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” “What Is Democracy,” “The Truth About Killer Robots,” Locarno winner “Fausto,” and Karlovy Vary winners “Walden” and “Putin’s Witnesses.” Take a look at the full slate at https://pointsnorthinstitute.org.

Wednesday, August 22

– Today Sffilm announced...

The Oath, the Roadside Attractions holiday comedy directed by and starring Ike Barinholtz and co-starring Tiffany Haddish, will have its world premiere at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival.

The film will screen September 25 at ArcLight Hollywood and was one of four gala screenings unveiled today by Laff along with the El Capitan climb documentary Free Solo, Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince and Eva Vives’ All About Nina.

The Oath, a dark comedy about politics mixing with a family Thanksgiving hits theaters October 12. Nora Dunn, Chris Ellis, Jon Barinholtz, Meredith Hagner, Carrie Brownstein, Billy Magnussen and John Cho co-star.

A teaser was released last week.

This marks the first year Film Independent’s Laff will take place in the fall — it runs September 20-28 — as part of a plan to get in the mix of a heated fall festival season that includes Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York.

The La Film Festival will hold the world premiere of holiday-season comedy “The Oath,” starring Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz, on Sept. 25 at the ArcLight Hollywood.

“The Oath,” Barinholtz’s directorial debut, centers on a couple whose Thanksgiving takes a turn for the worse when two federal agents wind up being held captive in their living room. Barinholtz also wrote the script. The film also stars John Cho, Carrie Brownstein, Billy Magnussen, Meredith Hagner, Barinholtz’s brother Jon Barinholtz, Nora Dunn, and Chris Ellis.

Roadside Attractions will open “The Oath” on Oct. 12. The movie was one of four gala screenings unveiled Wednesday by the festival, which also announced it will hold the West Coast premiere of Eva Vives’ “All About Nina” on Sept. 23 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts; the Los Angeles premiere of Rupert Everett’s “The Happy Prince” on Sept. 25 at the Annenberg; and the...

Jim Jarmusch, Eszter Balint, Lenny Kaye, Bill Frisell, Charlie Sexton and Marc Ribot appear in Ron Mann's Carmine Street Guitars Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 56th New York Film Festival Spotlight on Documentary selections this afternoon. The programme includes Tom Volf's Maria By Callas; Mark Bozek's The Times Of Bill Cunningham, narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker; Charles Ferguson's Watergate with interviews of Lesley Stahl, Dan Rather, Pat Buchanan, and John Dean; Alexis Bloom's Divide And Conquer: The Story Of Roger Ailes At Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, and American Dharma directed by Errol Morris.

There are 14 documentaries in all chosen by Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones, Dennis Lim, Film Society of Lincoln Center Director of Programming, and Florence Almozini, Film Society of Lincoln Center Associate Director of Programming.

Tickets for the 56th New York Film...

Errol Morris’ look at Steve Bannon, Alexis Bloom’s dissection of Roger Ailes, and James Longley’s unflinching portrait of life in war-torn Afghanistan are just a few of the politically charged documentaries that will screen as part of this year’s New York Film Festival.

The annual gathering for cinephiles and Oscar hopefuls has unveiled the complete lineup for its Spotlight on Documentary section, and it’s filled with some of the biggest names in non-fiction filmmaking. These directors are turning their cameras not just on agitprop masters and geopolitical hotspots, they’re also highlighting artistic giants, social justice champions, and off-beat fashion photographers.

The festival, which is presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, appears to be leaning into the polarized present. The selections include “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” which is directed by Bloom, the filmmaker behind “Bright Lights;” “The Waldheim Waltz,” director...

The 2018 Toronto Film Festival has unveiled lineups for its key Tiff Docs and Midnight sidebars, which features a host of strong world premieres including for Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, Alexis Bloom’s Roger Ailes pic Divide and Conquer and Rashida Jones’ Quincy in the documentary section and Shane Black’s The Predator and David Gordon Green’s Halloween in the genre pic lineup.

The fest, which kicks off its 43rd edition September 6, also revealed its classics sidebar Tiff Cinematheque and short films lineups Thursday. (See the full lists below.)

Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which unveiled its first trailer today ahead of Tiff’s announcement and the pic’s September 21 theatrical release, will open the Tiff Docs sidebars, which also features the heart-stopping El Capitan free-climb docu Free Solo, Tom Donahue’s This Changes Everything and the closing film Searching for Ingmar Bergman.

Fox’s The Predator reboot, which hits big...

Shane’s Black’s “The Predator,” David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” reboot and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9” will all have world premieres at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The titles were unveiled Thursday as part of the slates for the genre-centric Midnight Madness program and the Tiff Docs section.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” said Peter Kuplowsky, Midnight Madness programmer. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have sought to curate an eccentric array of world premieres that demonstrate the dexterity of genre cinema as a canvas for both sublime satisfaction and stunning subversion. That includes the section’s two much-anticipated sequels, ‘The Predator’ and ‘Halloween,’ each of which boldly and brilliantly builds upon its mythic iconography to thrilling and surprising effect.”

Midnight Madness will open with the “The Predator” and...

Two of the Toronto International Film Festival’s signature programs have today unveiled their full slates, including both the genre-bending Midnight Madness program and the wide-ranging Tiff Docs section. Both slates will play home to highly anticipated world premieres, including David Gordon Green’s new spin on the “Halloween” mythos, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9,” Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks’ Quincy Jones doc, “Quincy,” and many more.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” said Peter Kuplowsky, Midnight Madness Programmer, in an official statement. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have sought to curate an eccentric array of World Premieres that demonstrate the dexterity of genre cinema as a canvas for both sublime satisfaction and stunning subversion. That includes the section’s two much-anticipated sequels, ‘The Predator’ and ‘Halloween,’ each of which boldly and brilliantly...

Tiff Midnight Madness to feature first Indian entry, The Man Who Feels No Pain, and Peter Strickland’s In Fabric.

The world premiere of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 exploring life in the United States under president Trump will open Tiff Docs at the Toronto International Film Festival, while David Gordon Green’s Halloween and Shane Black’s The Predator receive their world premeres in Midnight Madness.

Midnight Madness

The 10 Midnight Madness selections include the world premieres of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, about a cursed dress, and the first Indian film ever to screen in the section, Vasan Bala’s...

Title: Maria by Callas Director: Tom Volf Genre: Documentary Tom Volf’s ‘Maria by Callas’ documentary is the most enthralling and powerful portrait of the 20th century opera diva. Footage of the singer intertwines with voice overs, where Callas’ letters are read by Fanny Ardant. This narrative device grants the chance to the legendary Greek American […]

The post Maria by Callas Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Folman’s previous work includes Waltz With Bashir.

Altitude Film Distribution has bolstered its UK release slate with two acquisitions at the Efm.

The company has picked up UK rights to Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman’s upcoming animation Where Is Anne Frank?

Wild Bunch handles sales on the project, which is in pre-production and is inspired by Anne Frank’s diaries. The story focuses on Frank’s imaginary friend Kitty, who in the film comes to life in the family’s Amsterdam home.

Folman was granted access to the Anne Frank family’s archives for research. Producers are Folmans’ Purple Wale (Israel), Jani Thiltges for Samsa Film (Luxembourg), and Eric Gossen for Walking The Dog (Belgium).

Altitude has also picked up UK rights to Tom Volf’s feature documentary Maria By Callas: In Her Own Words in a deal with sales agent mk2 films.

The doc tells the life story of the titular Greek-American soprano, 40 years...

The new documentary Maria by Callas: In Her Own Words, tells the life story of the famous Greek-American soprano forty years after her death. First-time filmmaker Tom Volf poured over her archives to reconstruct her story with TV interviews, photographs and letters, all in Callas’ own words. The documentary had its world premiere at Rome Film Fest.

While numerous books have been written about the tumultuous life of Callas, Volf largely focuses on a story showing the positive aspects of her life, one he thinks she herself would have approved.

Volf said that he had the blessing of the two...