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There’s a wave of new and intelligent life at the indie box office this weekend post-Academy Awards after the traditionally slow, slow period for new openings. There have been a smattering of interesting films (Universal Language for one) but things have absolutely picked up with a George R.R. Martin short story on screen, a nursing home creep-out starring John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, the latest Atom Egoyan film, a duo that landed really well at Cannes, a Bruno Dumont sci-fi, a Bruce Labruce sex romp, an Italian box office hit and more.

Moderate-wide: Vertical opens action fantasy In The Lost Lands on 1,365 screens as the distributor continues a push to dot its schedule with more moderate-wide releases. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and based on a George R.R. Martin short story of the same name, the pic stars Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista and Arly Jover. Log line: A...

While we wait for that Jennifer’s Body sequel that seems to be taking shape, Amanda Seyfried returns to the screen in director Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils this coming weekend.

Seven Veils will be released in select theaters nationwide on March 7, 2025.

Amanda Seyfried stars in the upcoming film alongside Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Mark O’Brien, Vinessa Antoine, Ambur Braid, and Michael Kupfer-Radecky.

In Seven Veils, “After years away, theater director Jeanine (Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried) re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel.”

XYZ Films previews, “Renowned director Atom Egoyan reunites with Seyfried in this visually stunning, propulsive work, filmed on location during the staging of Egoyan’s acclaimed production of Salome. Egoyan directed the opera,...

More than a decade after working together on the erotic thriller Chloe, Amanda Seyfried and director Atom Egoyan have reteamed for an “opera drama” / “meditative thriller” called Seven Veils, which XYZ Films and Variance will be bringing to theatres in the United States on March 7th. Along with the release date announcement comes the unveiling of a trailer, which can be viewed in the embed above.

Seven Veils sees Seyfried taking on the role of Jeanine, “a theatre director who is dealing with repressed trauma as she prepares to mount a production of the opera Salome.” Here’s the synopsis: Jeanine re-enters the opera world after several years away to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel. Deadline notes that the movie...

Following its premiere back at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Atom Egoyan’s latest film Seven Veils is finally getting a U.S. release. The Amanda Seyfried-led thriller set behind the scenes of the opera world will open on March 7 via XYZ Films and Variance and now the new trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “After years away, theater director Jeanine (Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried) re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel. Renowned director Atom Egoyan reunites with Seyfried in this visually stunning, propulsive work, filmed on location during the staging of Egoyan’s acclaimed production of ‘Salome.'”

Ethan Vestby said in his TIFF review, “You have to hand it to Atom Egoyan:...

As someone who has worked as an exotic dancer, I’m a tough critic when it comes to cinematic stripper fare, with my own particular set of credibility metrics. Magic Mike trying to fund a business with rubber-banded stacks of cash? Check. “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails in a pivotal dance scene in the Magic Mike Xxl sequel? Check. Baroque manicures in Zola? [Checks nails.] Check. Nomi Malone licking the stripper pole in Showgirls? Two acrylic-tipped thumbs way down. Yikes. Never in a million years.

Now comes writer-director Sean Baker’s Anora,...

It suffered at the box office and failed to win any Oscars, but the 1994 prison drama is still seen by many as greater than The Godfather

The Shawshank Redemption is not the greatest film ever made. Heck, it’s not even one of best films of 1994 – the year of Pulp Fiction, Hoop Dreams, Chungking Express, Exotica, Quiz Show and the last two entries in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours trilogy. And yet it continues to sit at or near the top of IMDb’s top 250, currently a shade above The Godfather and The Dark Knight, despite opening to polite reviews, middling box office and a resurgent Oscar campaign that nonetheless yielded zero awards. That’s an incredible comeback story, a video-and-cable-fueled long game as steady and methodical as, say, spending two decades chipping a hole in the prison walls with a rock hammer.

Much of the film’s standing in...

Seven Veils.Following the critical and commercial success of Exotica (1994)—Atom Egoyan’s erotic thriller about a tax auditor who frequents a Toronto strip club for a particular dancer—the Canadian Opera Company approached the director to adapt Richard Strauss’s Salome, first performed in 1905,for their upcoming season. There were notable similarities between the structures of sexual pleasure in John the Baptist’s decapitation and the nocturnal sleaze of nightclub culture: intemperate gawking by paternal figures, the aesthetics of high-risk environments, and a figurative and literal unclothing. The production emerged at an especially vulnerable time for Toronto sex workers, who were experiencing high rates of violence and targeted homicide. Egoyan’s production was a suitably macabre, postmodern spin on both the Bible story and Oscar Wilde’s one-act tragedy, which inspired Strauss’s opera. The Judean palace was swapped for a viridescent sanatorium on a steeply angled stage, with...

Atom Egoyan is a Cairo-born Canadian filmmaker of Armenian descent who broke through in the early '90s with a string of sharp and experimental dramas, including Exotica and his magnum opus, The Sweet Hereafter. He began directing features in the early 1980s as part of the loose movement known as the Toronto New Wave. Some of his strongest early works include the familial dramas Next of Kin and Family Viewing. Egoyan's 21st-century output ranges from the polarizing erotic thriller Chloe to the Holocaust revenge drama Remember. His latest project is the upcoming Seven Veils, a drama starring Amanda Seyfried.

Filmmaker Michael Goorjian set out to create a different kind of film about Armenian nationality when developing “Amerikatsi,” the country’s submission in the international feature category for this year’s Academy Awards. Along with directing, Goorjian also stars as Charlie, an American who repatriates to Armenia after World War II — but ends up in a Soviet prison for simply wearing a tie. The circumstances are absurd and bleak, but Goorjian was intent on finding a light, affirming tone for the story.

“There had been a lot of Armenian films usually focused on the genocide. I just wanted to make something that would be hopeful. But also I wanted to make a film that Armenians could be proud of, but wouldn’t be hard to share — that was enjoyable to watch,” Goorjian shared in a conversation with fellow director Atom Egoyan. “Today there’s so much crazy stuff going on.

Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) has an enormous task ahead of her. She's helmed some regional projects before, but remounting a Canadian Opera Company production of the legendary opera "Salome" is by far her biggest challenge yet. There's a lot to do, it turns out, beyond just directing -- from wrangling difficult actors, and ever-changing politics at the opera house, as the executives are particularly concerned with her desire to create small, yet meaningful changes to "Salome." On top of all of that, there's Jeanine's biggest hurdle: her father directed "Salome" at the same place, creating an enormous sense of responsibility shadowed by a deeply troubled past.

There are a lot of moving pieces to "Seven Veils," as the film revolves around the various complexities of staging an opera. The scale is immense, and director Atom Egoyan makes great work of the mammoth structure of the Four Seasons opera house in Toronto,...

Here's the story — in the year 32, John the Baptist was imprisoned for maligning the king's wife; her daughter Salome falls obsessively in love with John, but he refuses to even look at her. One drunken night, the king begs Salome to dance for him. He's supposed to be her father, but he'll give her anything for a lithe, entrancing dance for he and his lecherous friends. Salome's mother makes the request. She will dance for the head of John on a silver platter. This isn't just Biblical; this is art, and it's been represented in essentially every artistic medium throughout the past two millennia. Salome and her dance.

No, here's the story — in 1996, famed filmmaker Atom Egoyan staged a bold adaptation of Richard Strauss' famous opera, Salome, written by Oscar Wilde. Egoyan modernized it with stylish effects and captured the exploitation of a young woman. Meanwhile, the director's masterful film...

Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s 40-year relationship with the Toronto International Film Festival helped put his movies on the map in Hollywood.

But that impressive trajectory out of Toronto of iconic Egoyan dramas like Next of Kin, Family Viewing, The Adjuster, Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Guest of Honor — often psychodramas about families shattered by death, loss and betrayal, as parents and children grow apart — got off to an inauspicious start in 1982 with an early short film that screened from a sidewalk outside the Uptown Theatre on Yonge Street.

“It was the ultimate act of chutzpah,” Egoyan recalls of joining fellow rag-tag filmmaker Bruce McDonald, both of whom had shorts rejected by Toronto fest programmers that year, when a feature by a close friend did get an invite.

Feeling a prized Toronto fest berth just beyond their fingertips, years before becoming inescapable fixtures on the TIFF red carpet, Egoyan and...

Atom Egoyan’s “Seven Veils” will have its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday. The Canadian filmmaker of “Exotica,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Chloe” will present his film at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in a special Sept. 8 “Avant-premiere” screening held in partnership with the Canadian Opera Company.

“Seven Veils” stars Amanda Seyfried and was inspired by Egoyan’s recent experience with a revival of his 1996 version of the opera “Salome,” which he directed for the first time in 1996 for the Canadian Opera Company. In the film, Seyfried plays a theater director who is haunted by the past while mounting a version of that opera, the most famous work of her mentor.

Ambur Braid and Michael Kupfer-Radecky, who appeared Egoyan’s recent staging of the opera, will reprise their roles of Salome and John the Baptist in the film. After the Avant-premiere screening on Sept.

TheLifetimeAchievement Award of the twentiethSoundTrack_Cologne 2023goes to Mychael Danna.

Danna is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning film composer who has composed over 80 film scores and is recognized for his blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. He composed the transculturally inspired, 2013 Oscar and Golden Globe winning film score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Danna also composed the scores for Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Ride With the Devil.

Other well-known films Danna has composed music for include Academy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated films such as The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica and Ararat from his longtime collaboration with director Atom Egoyan; also Moneyball and Capote with director Bennett Miller, Monsoon Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Being Julia, Stillwater, The Addams Family 1 and 2, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur and The Song of the Crayfish.

Danna won an Emmy Award for outstanding music composition for the mini-series World Without End.

The Sounds of 2021 mix of movie soundtracks comes in at just over two hours: a synergy of cerebral, graceful, paranoid, turbulent, and wondrous sounds from across all genres, merged to tell its own sonic story. The focus is mainly Hollywood and American indie movies, with a few excursions to Ethiopia, Chile, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Italy, and Sweden. My moviegoing practices became ever more erratic this year after a move to a new country, on-off rule changes in cinemas, and a tendency to have cinematic interests in something specific that was not part of the current slate. That being said, there was excitement in the air when it came to new cinema that felt more powerful this year than last and I hope that grows. New work from Mica Levi, Ludovico Einaudi, and a country soundtrack from Clint Eastwood’s latest film are a few of the exciting moments from...

Mainstream American cinema has a complicated relationship with sex, simultaneously leering and puritanical. Decades after the downfall of the Hays Code, Hollywood as a whole still struggles with honest and fully layered portrayals of human sexuality. The powerful combination of statewide and local censorship boards, the industry's own self-regulation efforts, and decades long social movements by conservative pressure groups helped to drastically change our cinematic understanding of sex. As Kirby Dick argued in his 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, ratings boards tend to be far tougher on sex and nudity than scenes of blood-stained massacres in action movies. Even erotic films suffer under this system, with Fifty Shades of Grey, a movie built entirely around its sexual content, being pre-emptively toned down by its studio to avoid the dreaded Nc-17 rating. The end of the Code in the mid-1960s saw greater creative freedom in regards to the...

The route that took Oscar-winning “Life of Pi” composer Mychael Danna from the basement of a Toronto church to an office on Hollywood and Vine and all the way to the stage of Zurich Film Festival, where he will receive a career achievement tribute on Sept. 30, kicked off – as such things often do – with an offhand comment.

It was the mid-1980s and Danna was a student of electronic music at the University of Toronto, paying his way through college by playing organ in local churches and by composing ambient pieces for the nearby planetarium. He’d also score plays on campus, mostly for kicks. Sitting in the sound booth one afternoon, and idly chatting with the neighboring lighting technician, Danna stumbled onto a new path. “My friend told me about another guy from campus who wanted to make a film and was looking for a composer,” Danna says. “That is literally how it happened.

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s best-selling debut espionage thriller “The Sympathizer” is getting the silver screen treatment at HBO from A24. Robert Downey Jr. will co-star as well as produce the show.

Park Chan-wook, director of 2003’s “Oldboy” and 2016’s “The Handmaiden,” will serve as co-showrunner with Don McKellar. Filming is set to take place in Los Angeles and in Vietnam.

“The Sympathizer” is described as a cross-culture satire about the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War and his resulting exile in the United States. A worldwide search is currently underway for the lead role and the rest of the predominantly Vietnamese ensemble. The TV adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a co-production between HBO, A24 and Rhombus Media in association with Cinetic Media and Moho Film. Downey will play multiple supporting roles, all of whom will represent a different arm of the American establishment.

It has been a rough year for me. While there has been sublime highs, my year has been defined by months of my girlfriend’s hospitalization and the overwhelming feeling of despair that potentially losing the love of your life brings. Without any of my normal comforts due to the pandemic––mainly the brilliance of being able to lose myself in a cinema––I’ve embraced the beauty of movies even more than normal. With nothing to do but wait in an empty room for news about her health, I’ve seen a lot of films from this year, some of which have helped delight, move, and heal me through the worst year of my life. It’s a testament to all of these that even with my mind not being in the right place, they’ve all left a permanent impact.

Honorable Mentions: David Byrne’s American Utopia, Kajillionaire,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Dark and the Wicked (Bryan Bertino)

How then does a life-long atheist like Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael’s (Michael Abbott Jr.) mother (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) become a believer in God? She hears the voice of the Devil. She witnesses evil incarnate and accepts her inability to combat its seemingly inevitable goal. And if she cannot stop it from terrifying her with whispers about how it is going to take the soul of her dying husband (Michael Zagst) to Hell, what besides God can? Only when they can no longer act on their own behalf do the faithless turn to Him for help. Maybe she prays. Maybe she collects...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Black Is King (Beyoncé)

Four years ago, Beyoncé dropped the film version of Lemonade, which brought together directors Kahlil Joseph, Jonas Åkerlund, Mark Romanek, Melina Matsoukas, and more to deliver a visual album that, like many of her works, had an immense cultural impact. She is now returning with Black Is King, a film in production for an entire year that reimagines the tale of The Lion King through the perspective of the Black experience. Now available on Disney+, we imagine it’ll be the most-watched film of the weekend.

Where to Stream: Disney+

Bull (Annie Silverstein)

There’s not much to do around Kristyl’s (Amber Havard) hard...

Throughout his sixteen feature films, prolific Toronto-based, Egyptian-born filmmaker Atom Egoyan has explored obsession, modern technology, fragmented families, the unreliability of memory, and multicultural tensions embodied within Canada. His latest film, Guest of Honour, recalls his earlier films––including Family Viewing, Speaking Parts, The Adjuster, and Exotica––in a story featuring David Thewlis as a food inspector and Laysla De Oliveria as his adult child, wrongfully convicted of a crime she did not commit but agrees to serve the time for, in order to atone for other sins.

An intimate thriller told through the unreliable memories of its protagonist’s daughter, Guest of Honour is now available via Kino Marquee, supporting Virtual Cinemas. We spoke to Egoyan about the inspirations behind hiis latest film, launching at Venice and TIFF last year, and its place in his career spanning three and a half decades since his first feature, 1984’s Next of Kin.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Beach House (Jeffrey A. Brown)

There’s a lot to like about Jeffrey A. Brown’s feature directorial debut The Beach House, from its gorgeous production design to its ruminations on mankind’s fragility when compared with Mother Nature’s hardier offerings (despite our penchant for believing we hold dominion over Her). It’s therefore easy to appreciate the reason Emily (Liana Liberato), Randall (Noah Le Gros), Mitch (Jake Weber), and Jane (Maryanne Nagel) have arrived at a site that may end up being their tomb because we’re quick to ignore the baked-in irony too. This was supposed to be an escape from life’s struggles—a...

Atom Egoyan (Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter) is back after five years with the thriller Guest of Honour starring David Thewlis (Naked), Laysla De Oliveria (Locke & Key), and Luke Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums). While Kino Lorber recently picked up the film, which premiered on the fall festival circuit last year, for a North American release, the first international trailer has now arrived.

In the story, Veronica (De Oliveria) has been wrongfully convicted of sexually abusing a seventeen-year-old student and she has been sentenced to prison. However, she convinced she deserves the punishment as penance for an earlier crime in her youth and refuses to fight the charges. Jim (Thewlis), Veronica’s father, refuses to accept this course of action and utilizes his power as a food inspector to right certain wrongs.

Our review by John Fink praises the film as a return to form for Egoyan conveying, “If Egoyan wasn...

Guest Of Honour director and rabbit competition winner Atom Egoyan with Anne-Katrin Titze’s Steiff Dürer Bunny at the Seven Grams Caffe in New York Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At the Canada Now Opening Night U.S. premiere on February 13, of Atom Egoyan’s Guest Of Honour, starring David Thewlis and Laysla De Oliveira with Luke Wilson and Arsinée Khanjian, 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman asked Atom about his work with longtime composer Mychael Danna and Shannon Graham.

Guest Of Honour China poster from Atom Egoyan’s phone Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Ed Bahlman: Atom, it’s a beautiful score. Can you talk a little bit how you worked with the composer?

Atom Egoyan: The composer is someone I’ve been working with since Family Viewing, Mychael Danna. He’s a very brilliant composer. Because of the relationship, a lot of the visual composing...

The Song Of Names producer Robert Lantos on introducing composer Howard Shore to François Girard: “I had worked with Howard a few times before. Three David Cronenberg films. Crash, eXistenZ and Eastern Promises.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

François Girard’s The Song Of Names, based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht, screenplay by Jefferey Caine with a score by Howard Shore (two-time Oscar-winner for Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring and one for The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King) is produced by Robert Lantos, Lyse Lafontaine and Nick Hirschkorn, and stars Tim Roth and Clive Owen with Catherine McCormack, Jonah Hauer-King (Prince Eric in Rob Marshall’s upcoming The Little Mermaid), Luke Doyle, Gerran Howell, Misha Handley, Daniel Multu and Eddie Izzard.

Atom Egoyan and Robert Lantos with Anne-Katrin Titze at the Museum of Tolerance in New York for...

As a life-long appreciator of Atom Egoyan–trust me on this one–Guest of Honour is one of his stranger pictures veering occasionally into the territory of dark comedy. While his later works (especially Remember and Captive) have yet to reach a return to the emotional resonance of his back-to-back masterpieces Exotica and The Sweet Hererafter, his latest film is a scrappy Southern Ontario indie that actually harkens back to his earliest work that kicked off the so-called Toronto New Wave, including Next of Kin, The Adjuster, and Speaking Parts. The film itself is a mystery buried deeper than it ought to be in a confessional as Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) sits down with Father Greg (Luke Wilson) to discuss the passing of her father Jim (David Thewlis). She notes his motivations were often very strange–as if we’d come to expect anything else in an Atom Egoyan picture.

Exclusive: David Thewlis has been set to star in Oscar nominee Atom Egoyan’s latest feature, Guest Of Honour. Thewlis will be joined by Laysla De Oliveira and Luke Wilson in the father-daughter drama. From a script by Egoyan, filming begins on November 5 in the Toronto area. The Film Farm’s Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss are producing; Egoyan is also producing for Ego Film Arts. Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, Sebastien Beffa and Noah Segal are exec producers. Elevation Pictures has Canadian rights, Playtime is handling international sales.

Thewlis plays Jim, dad to Veronica (De Oliveira), a young high-school music teacher. The two attempt to unravel their complicated histories and intertwined secrets in the film which weaves through time exploring perception and penance, memory and forgiveness.

When a hoax instigated by an aggressive school bus driver (Rossif Sutherland) goes very wrong, Veronica is accused of abusing her position...

Atom Egoyan, the Oscar-nominated Canadian director, is set to direct “Guest of Honour,” a twisted psychological drama which will be produced by Playtime, Elevation Pictures, Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm.

Based on an original script by Egoyan, “Guest of Honour” explores the relationship between a father and his 20-something year old daughter who wants to remain in jail for a sexual assault she knows she’s been wrongfully indicted for. Father and daughter find themselves acting out of the bounds of good behavior as the past haunts them.

“I’m particularly excited and passionate about this script,” said Egoyan, adding that he was thrilled to be working with partners Playtime and Elevation Pictures, who have clarity and understand my vision for the film and are very well positioned to help me share this film with audiences around the world.”

The movie marks Egoyan’s follow up to “Remember,...

Ryan Lambie Jan 22, 2018

The artist behind some truly unforgettable videogame covers, Bob Wakelin, has sadly passed away.

His artwork appeared on some of the best and most beloved games of the 1980s. New Zealand Story, Batman, Rainbow Island, RoboCop, Renegade, Chase HQ... the list is remarkably long. British artist Bob Wakelin was a key part of the UK games industry, and while not a household name, necessarily, his output was extraordinary - and in some cases, far more exciting than the products his artwork helped bring to life.

See related  35 must-watch movies in 2017

It's with heavy heart, then, that we share the news that Wakelin. As word broke on the 21st January, Wakelin's passing was confirmed on the artist's Twitter feed, while tributes poured in from fans all over the globe.

Bob Wakelin's career began during the 1980s computer boom, hastened by such systems as the Zx Spectrum and the...

There’s more to say about the sexual harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The New York Times has a blistering 7,500-word piece, with five bylines, detailing exactly how he got away with it — and naming those who aided and abetted over three decades.

Among those cited in “Weinstein’s Complicity Machine” are Creative Artists Agency, various executives at Miramax and The Weinstein Company, and The National Enquirer, among others. As the Nyt reporters frame it: “Some aided his actions without realizing what he was doing. Many knew something or detected hints, though few understood the scale of his sexual misconduct. Almost everyone had incentives to look the other way or reasons to stay silent.”

It’s an extraordinary piece of reporting that deserves your careful read, but here’s a digest of some of its most damning allegations.

According to the New York Times:

— Assistants were told to...

Exclusive: Curzon12 will stream recent and classic movies; first lineup revealed.

Curzon is beefing up its online offering with the launch of Curzon12, a monthly VoD service built into its membership packages.

The service will host 12 recent and classic movies which will be available to stream when logging in with a Curzon membership.

Scroll down for first lineup

Each month’s curated lineup, taken exclusively from Curzon’s library, is selected by the company’s programming team and is designed to complement the films playing across Curzon’s cinemas and its day-and-date service on Curzon Home Cinema that month.

The collection will feature the work of directors such as Yorgos Lanthimos, Charlie Chaplin, Andrea Arnold, Satyajit Ray and Agnes Varda as well as lesser known filmmakers.

The offering will be accompanied by a monthly newsletter that will delve deeper into three headline titles for that month.

The subscription is a benefit for existing and future members at no additional...

Back in 2004, Hal Hartley directed “The Girl from Monday” and tried to launch a website where viewers could watch the film. Since the average internet speed back then was 34 Kbps — about 165 times slower than today’s 5.6 Mbps — that didn’t work so well. “The technology was still a little sticky,” Hartley said. “We ended up distributing it in a more traditional way, where I would travel all over the place with the film and do Q&As.”

With films like “Trust,” “Amateur,” and “Henry Fool,” Hartley’s movies have never been about the money — but he’s always had his eye on the bottom line. He owns 50% of every film he’s made, and constantly seeks to capitalize on technology as a way to achieve independence and financial sustainability.

Read More: Why the ‘Swiss Army Man’ Directors Backed the Psychedelic Comedy-Musical ‘Snowy Bing Bongs’

With Kickstarter, he raised more than $56,000 on DVD presales for his 2011 film, “Meanwhile,” and then raised a production budget of nearly $400,000 from 1,789 backers for his 2014 film, “Ned Rifle.” “‘Ned Rifle’ became my most successful movie to date, and I didn’t need to share that money,” he said. “It all came directly to me and the crew.”

Read More: How a Chance Encounter With Terrence Malick Turned Trey Edward Shults Into a Filmmaker

“Ned Rifle” was the final installment of the Grim family trilogy, one that included “Henry Fool” in 1997 and “Fay Grim” in 2006. The Kickstarter process taught Hartley that he had loyal fans in places like Japan, Australia, Europe, and Taiwan who were invested in his work. Now he’s testing that direct connection with Kickstarter to pre-sell a Grim family box set, complete with subtitles.

“I’m going to do the box set, no matter what,” said Hartley. “I really do want to make this approach to distributing my own film viable on its own. That’s why I’m gambling with this. My gambit here is the subtitling. That’s what is expensive about the undertaking, and why I’m going after $100,000. Four foreign languages translated accurately and sensitively, and then the authoring of that onto the DVD — it gets expensive. I’m just hoping the expense is worth it because it will help films contribute a wider audience around the world.”

See MoreHal Hartley’s Grim Family: An Oral History From ‘Henry Fool’ to ‘Ned Rifle’

Hartley says he’s talked with Atom Egoyan (“Sweet Hereafter,” “Exotica”) about the value of owning their work, since handling the various aspects of the business requires a full-time staff. Sustaining that support requires more work, and Hartley feels fortunate that the world of television has begun opening to him.

“Since I came back to America in 2009, I’ve worked for five years to get people interested in my TV projects – because I’ve been interested in episodic television for a long time,” he saidy. “I was also open to just being a director for hire. I saw a lot of half-hour comedy shows that were well written and said, ‘I can see myself directing that.'”

Read More: The 20 Best-Directed TV Drama Series of the 21st Century, Ranked

The veteran filmmaker got his TV break when he ran into Gregory Jacobs, his former first assistant director who had gone on to work for Steven Soderbergh and got his own television show, “Red Oaks,” on Amazon. Jacobs invited Hartley to direct an episode in season one, then half of the second season (five episodes). Starting next week, he will share season-three directing duties with David Gordon Green and Amy Heckerling.

“On my films, I’m thinking on a hundred different levels at any moment,” said Hartley. “While coming in to direct ‘Red Oaks’ — which is a script I take to very easily, it’s the kind of comedy I know how to do — what they expect of me is just to give it some character, explain to the actors the things that might not be perfectly obvious, and make the day, get all the shots. So it’s nice. I come away from a day’s work feeling good, like I’m a good skilled laborer.”

And is Hartley any closer to getting his own TV show?

“I’m developing something with Amazon. They optioned at least the pilot of my [half hour comedy] show,” said Hartley. “It’s about nuns who make beer to support themselves and they’re social activists, so they are wanted by the cops.”

Hal Hartley’s new Henry Fool Trilogy boxed set is part of Kickstarter Gold, a new initiative bringing back some of the most inventive and successful creators in Kickstarter history. Now through July 31, over 65 exceptional artists, authors, designers, musicians and makers are back as they push ideas and rewards from their past projects in bold new directions. Head here to learn more, and here to browse all the live Kickstarter Gold projects.

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Sexplortation drama is a very difficult movie subject to take serious, for example Demi Moores movie "Striptease" from 1996 did everything wrong with a story about strippers life but poorly executed with uncomfortable actors and actresses. But 2 years before that, one movie from Canada manage to do everything right. "Exotica" from 1994 with a superb director from Egypt Atom Egoyan, and a great Star Trek actor Bruce Greenwood on the cast list, Exotica not only makes a sexplortation but an exiting thriller and a heart feeling drama and the story is not told but added in like a puzzle piece by piece. Story: Francis Brown (Bruce Greenwood) is a Tax Auditor, who lives a lonely life. He is visiting a strip club named Exotica...

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Canadian director and actress Sarah Polley, along with Noreen Halpern’s Halfire Entertainment, will adapt Margaret Atwood’s novel “Alias Grace” into a six-hour miniseries for Netflix. Deadline reports that Polley will write and produce the series while Mary Harron will direct the project.

Read More: Watch: Sarah Polley Interviews Greta Gerwig About Noah Baumbach’s ‘Frances Ha’ In 17-Minute Criterion Feature

“Alias Grace” follows the true story of poor Irish immigrant Grace Marks who, along with domestic servant James McDermott, was convicted of murdering her employer Thomas Kinnear and housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in 1843. While James was hanged, Grace received life imprisonment for her role in the crime. The conviction was highly controversial and Grace’s role in the murder was up for strong debate as to whether she took an active part in the crime or if she was simply an accessory. She was later exonerated after 30 years in jail.

If you’ve only kept up with Atom Egoyan‘s recent output then you are missing out on some of the finest dramas independent cinema has to offer. A few years before his 1997 masterpiece A Sweet Hereafter, he gave us Exotica, a deeply layered drama featuring the intertwining stories of characters who frequent a Canadian strip club, and how they attempt to reach a catharsis.

For fans of the film (and if you’re not, watch it and return as spoilers abound), a fantastic new video essay from Digger Deeper looks at the search for a paradise lost within the film. “These characters seek to transcend their singular pain to find solace in others, but find themselves continually arrested, forced to to live in a fractured world of unforgotten trauma,” he argues. Exploring the voyeurism and disconnected perspectives in the film, check out the video essay below for one of...

Atom Egoyan made some of the finest films of the 1990s. The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Felicia’s Journey are excellent dramas. Over the last few years, Egoyan’s films haven’t found the same level of acclaim. His last two pictures, The Devil’s Knot and The Captive, were disappointing but not without reminders of Egoyan’s talents. Quickly following those dramas, we’re already getting another film from […]

The post ‘Remember’ Trailer: Christopher Plummer Wants Revenge appeared first on /Film.

In the scheduled nine day run, the Marrakech Int. Film Festival truly gets into gear on the first Saturday when the fifteen competing films (having all recently premiered elsewhere) are slowly unveiled to the high brow jury. My first stab at Director General Bruno Barde’s selections was Paradise, a contemporary, Tehran doldrum portrait which was also a double Locarno winner. After that, I was treated to an uneventful press conference for the compassionately generous Bill Murray with the only bit of noteworthy news was his involvement in the new Wes Anderson film.

Later that evening, the festival gives what is an annual Valentine’s card of sorts to one national cinema. This year’s selection is one that I’m all too familiar with. With Atom Egoyan selected as the ambassador, the reel presentation included highlights from Canadiana with a glaring absence of select Quebecois films and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.

Exclusive: Sarah Polley is adapting David Gilbert’s acclaimed novel & Sons for Brett Ratner and his RatPac Entertainment. John Lesher is also in talks to come aboard as a producer. The novel, which was showered with critical praise on its debut last year, follows a legendary – and reclusive- Great American writer who, in the midst of delivering a eulogy at his oldest friend’s funeral, suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt. Principal amongst them are his three sons, who he reconvenes for the first time in years in an attempt – or so it would seem- to make amends.

Polley is an inspired choice for the classy source material. The Canadian filmmaker, who started her career as an actress in the likes of Atom Egoyan‘s Exotica and Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead, has since emerged as one of the...

Previous | Image 1 of 18 | NextSarah Silverman represented her new film, ‘I Smile Back.’

Chicago – The Red Carpet was well trod during the 51st Chicago International Film Festival. with film stars, directors and other personalities taking their walks in representing their films during the two weeks of the event. Photographer Joe Arce took the Exclusive Portraits, and Patrick McDonald got the soundbites.

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter known for his offbeat view of the world through films like “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” He presented his latest film at the Festival, “Anomalisa.”

HollywoodChicago.com: How would you describe yourself if someone asks you why you write the type of stories that you write?

Charlie Kaufman: I just try to be honest, because I think that’s my job description as a writer. I try to present something that is true, so...

Low-budget mavericks Atom Egoyan and Guy Maddin have been through the wringer. When Woodstock Film Festival director Meira Blaustein invited the filmmakers to share their trials and tribulations at this year's festival, there were stories abound — stories of failure, success, depression, revelations and 25 years of friendship. "Atom is one of the most amazing artists I’ve ever encountered," Blaustein told Indiewire. "From the days of 'Exotica,' he was one of my favorite filmmakers. He has the heart of a poet, the mind of a philosopher, and the soul of an artist. He lives and breathes the cinematic language. And Guy Maddin embodies our motto: 'fiercely independent.' These guys are what we’re about. That’s the Woodstock Film Festival." Egoyan's thriller "Remember" and Maddin's experimental epic "The Forbidden Room" both screened at the festival this year. The beginning of everything "As a student, I...

Read More: Woodstock Film Festival Celebrates 16 Years in Official Poster Art The Woodstock Film Festival has announced that Canadian filmmakers Atom Egoyan ("Exotica," "The Sweet Hereafter") and Guy Maddin ("Archangel," "The Heart of the World") will receive the Honorary Maverick Award and the second annual Fiercely Independent Award, respectively. The awards will be presented to the filmmakers on October 3 during the annual Maverick Awards Gala at Bsp Kingston, NY. Additionally, Egoyan's "Remember" will open the festival on October 1, while Maddin's "The Forbidden Room" will close the event on October 4. "Remember" stars Christopher Plummer as a 90-year-old Auschwitz survivor struggling with memory loss. After he receives a letter from his friend containing a stack of money, a gun and a letter detailing a shocking plan, he embarks on a cross-country journey to bring justice to the man who...

Canadian film-maker received the honour before a screening of Exotica as part of the Tribute To… programme

At the Sarajevo Film Festival on Wednesday [Aug 19], Canadian director Atom Egoyan received the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo for his contribution to the art of film at a ceremony in the festival’s Meeting Point cinema.

“By awarding Atom Egoyan with the Heart of Sarajevo, we would like to honour one of the most noted contemporary film-makers, who is not only a theatre and opera director as well, but also a visual artist, writer and professor of film,” said Sff festival director Mirsad Purivatra.

“They call him the master of visual and verbal storytelling, and we completely agree.”

Egoyan then took to the stage and delivered a touching speech: “I’ve been to many festivals, I’ve received honours, but this one is so special because of the spirit and the history of this festival.

“This is a festival...

Director’s latest feature Remember to screen at Venice and Toronto.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 14-22) is to pay tribute to Canadian director Atom Egoyan, who will receive Honorary Heart of Sarajevo for his contribution to film.

The festival will screen three of his films: Exotica (1994), set in and around a fictional strip club; Cannes award-winner The Sweet Hereafter (1997); and Ararat (2002), a drama about the Armenian genocide.

Egoyan, who was born to Armenian parents in Egypt but moved to Canada aged two, has directed more than a dozen features, several TV projects, and shorts.

Following critical acclaim and accolades for Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Ararat, his films of the past decade have included crime drama Where The Truth Lies, starring Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon; true crime drama Devil’s Knot, again with Firth and Reese Witherspoon; and thriller The Captive, starring Ryan Reynolds.

Egoyan’s latest feature, Remember, starring...

It was the summer of 1995. Bill Clinton was president, Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York, and Oj Simpson was on trial. That summer’s youth-oriented movies included Pixar's first movie Toy Story, the Disney musical Pocahontas — and Kids, in which wayward, stoned teens fuck each other senseless and head-stomp random strangers.

It might be hard to remember just how notorious Larry Clark's indie-skater odysey was. The movie grossed a modest $7 million at the box office that summer — a wild success when you account for the fact that it...

Exotica

Written & Directed by Atom Egoyan

Canada, 1994

Atom Egoyan’s serpentine erotic thriller, Exotica, is a flawless exercise in understated urgency. Flashbacks, arresting visuals, and Mychael Danna’s score slowly reveal a web of strangers inextricably linked by one man’s suffering. It’s less a cinematic puzzle than an organic realization. When all of the mysteries are unraveled, you know a little bit more about the Human condition. Though many consider The Sweet Hereafter to be Egoyan’s masterpiece, Exotica is fearless indie filmmaking at its best.

From the very first images of Exotica—a languid tracking shot across an artificial tropical landscape—we have the unsettling feeling that something terrible is lurking in the weeds. “You have to ask yourself what brought the person to this point,” an unseen narrator advises us. Egoyan then spends the next 100 minutes re-constructing the events that irrevocably shattered each of his characters.

Reno 911: Boyle’s Indie Neo-Noir an Enjoyable Pulpy Exercise

For his fifth feature, indie filmmaker Dave Boyle pays homage to film noir tropes with his twisty, engaging Man From Reno. Along the lines of the light, comically inclined indie sleuthing of Aaron Katz’s Portland set Cold Weather (2010), Boyle gives noir a fresh face in the culturally ambiguous city of San Francisco. Though not all of its tangential elements feel quite successful, Boyle’s screenplay, co-written with his regular collaborators Michael Lerman and Joel Clark, features an unpredictably dark third act that more resolutely recalls the films it’s inspired by than most of its modern counterparts.

Recently escaping from a book tour back home in Japan, famed pulpy mystery author Aki (Ayako Fujitano) finds herself alone in San Francisco while her disappearance causes a dramatic furor. She runs into a sexy stranger who calls himself Akira (Kazuki Kitamura...

[Editor's Note: This post is presented in partnership with Time Warner Cable Movies On Demand in support of Indie Film Month. Today's pick, "The Captive," is available now On Demand. This interview originally ran during the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.] Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan has been a fixture on La Croisette since his 1994 breakout feature "Exotica," which took the Fipresci prize. "The Sweet Hereafter" won that same award in addition to the Grand Prix honor in 1997. The filmmaker's career has by no means taken a nosedive since, but to many, he hasn't lived up to the promise set by his earlier efforts (save for "Felicia's Journey," which featured a great performance by the late Bob Hoskins). "Where the Truth Lies," "Adoration" and "Chloe" were all met with mixed reviews, while his latest to open in theaters, the West Memphis Three drama "Devil's Knot," was his worst...

Director Atom Egoyan on The Captive in New York: "This is the most challenging and something I've explored in The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica…" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

We speak about Wolfgang Staudte's Murderers Are Among Us, the blurring of parameters, Bruce Greenwood's Vince at the charity ball, the upcoming Remember with Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Bruno Ganz and Dean Norris and Die Walküre.

Ryan Reynolds and Mireille Enos give fervent performances of grief as Matthew and Tina, whose daughter Cass, played as an ice-skating, pie-loving, energetic young girl by Peyton Kennedy, goes missing. For eight years, aided by a Niagara team of detectives, headed by Rosario Dawson's Nicole Dunlop and Scott Speedman's Jeffrey Cornwall, they search for the missing child. The viewer knows her whereabouts in the clutches of Kevin Durand's Mika, a man in their midst, who comes up with new bristling storytelling functions...

Oscar-nominated Atom Egoyan (Exotica, Where the Truth Lies, Chloe) has a new psychological thriller to untangle in The Captive (formerly Queen Of The Night), starring Ryan Reynolds and The Killing’s Mireille Enos as a couple plagued by the unsolved disappearance of their young daughter Cassandra. Years later, mementos of Cassandra’s start mysteriously appearing and two detectives (Rosario Dawson and Scott Speedman) discover recent images of the girl online. Egoyan penned the script with David Fraser; Kevin Durand, Alexia Fast, and Bruce Greenwood also star. Watch the trailer above for The Captive, which is currently available via DirectTV and hits theaters December 12.