The migrant dream slips slowly into a nightmare Matteo Garrone’s drama, which takes us on a Continent-crossing odyssey. Although sometimes the tone veers widely from one extreme to another, this is nevertheless a compelling addition to a burgeoning library of dramas concerning the migrant/refugee experience, including Brandt Anderson’s The Strangers Case and Agnieszka Holland’s searing Green Border, in the past 12 months alone.
It begins full of the hopefulness of cousins Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) as they prepare to leave Senegal for what they firmly believe will be a better life in Europe. Shot with colour and verve by cinematographer Paolo Carnera the optimism of the boys is contagious, even as warnings from Seydou’s mother (Khady Sy) will come to echo through the rest of the film. The mood is, initially, that of a road trip - which, of course, to the boys it is.
It begins full of the hopefulness of cousins Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) as they prepare to leave Senegal for what they firmly believe will be a better life in Europe. Shot with colour and verve by cinematographer Paolo Carnera the optimism of the boys is contagious, even as warnings from Seydou’s mother (Khady Sy) will come to echo through the rest of the film. The mood is, initially, that of a road trip - which, of course, to the boys it is.
- 3/9/2024
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
On February 23, 2024, Cohen Media Group released “Io Capitano” in the United States, Italy’s Oscar-nominated Best International Feature film directed by Matteo Garrone. The movie is a Homeric fairy tale that tells the adventurous journey of two young boys, Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall), who leave Dakar to reach Europe. The 2024 Oscars contender has received widespread acclaim from critics, scoring a perfect 100% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The critics consensus reads, “A journey toward hope, ‘Io Capitano’ perambulates through the ravishing Saharan landscape encountering the most sublime and debased corners of humanity.” The castings, under the direction of Henri-Didier Njikam, took place on the African continent and features mostly newcomers. Read our full review round-up below.
See Watch our exciting interviews with 12 of the 20 Oscars 2024 acting nominees
Damon Wise of Deadline says, “Despite its technical elegance — and the film is near flawless in that respect — the...
The critics consensus reads, “A journey toward hope, ‘Io Capitano’ perambulates through the ravishing Saharan landscape encountering the most sublime and debased corners of humanity.” The castings, under the direction of Henri-Didier Njikam, took place on the African continent and features mostly newcomers. Read our full review round-up below.
See Watch our exciting interviews with 12 of the 20 Oscars 2024 acting nominees
Damon Wise of Deadline says, “Despite its technical elegance — and the film is near flawless in that respect — the...
- 2/24/2024
- by Vincent Mandile
- Gold Derby
Given the challenges that many migrants face when traveling to a new land, it makes sense to assume that they’re fleeing harrowingly nightmarish realities. But the scenes that director Matteo Garrone uses to open his heartrending Io Capitano are far from nightmarish. Garrone’s big-dreaming migrant characters aren’t running away from something so much as they’re running toward it. The possibility that their goal is little more than a mirage makes this epic tale’s often horrendous journey even more wrenching.
The Dakar neighborhood where teenaged Seydou (Seydou Sarr) lives with his mother (Ndeye Khady Sy) and siblings is a chaotic sprawl of ramshackle buildings and bustling markets. A street party practically explodes as a spectacle of drumming, dancing, and colorful homemade couture. Though the Dakar of the film is clearly poor, with few modern conveniences and not much of a job market, it hardly seems the...
The Dakar neighborhood where teenaged Seydou (Seydou Sarr) lives with his mother (Ndeye Khady Sy) and siblings is a chaotic sprawl of ramshackle buildings and bustling markets. A street party practically explodes as a spectacle of drumming, dancing, and colorful homemade couture. Though the Dakar of the film is clearly poor, with few modern conveniences and not much of a job market, it hardly seems the...
- 2/11/2024
- by Chris Barsanti
- Slant Magazine
Io Capitano, Pinocchio, Tale Of Tales director Matteo Garrone with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I would say that fairy tales, as Italo Calvino used to say, fairy tales are true. It’s a different way to talk about the human condition.”
Italy’s Oscar submission and Venice Film Festival Unesco and Best Director Silver Lion winner Matteo Garrone’s suspenseful and fleet Io Capitano (Me Captain), co-written with Massimo Ceccherini (Garrone’s Pinocchio), Massimo Gaudioso, and Andrea Tagliaferri, shot by Paolo Carnera stars the naturalistic duo of Seydou Sarr (Marcello Mastroianni Award Best Young Actor) and Moustapha Fall with Ndeye Khady Sy, Oumar Diaw, Issaka Sawadogo.
Matteo Garrone on Io Capitano shot by Paolo Carnera: “Paolo put himself in the service of the story and he worked carefully on the light, but tried always to be natural, …”
Garrone’s Tale of Tales, based on Giambattista Basile’s early 17th century fairy tales,...
Italy’s Oscar submission and Venice Film Festival Unesco and Best Director Silver Lion winner Matteo Garrone’s suspenseful and fleet Io Capitano (Me Captain), co-written with Massimo Ceccherini (Garrone’s Pinocchio), Massimo Gaudioso, and Andrea Tagliaferri, shot by Paolo Carnera stars the naturalistic duo of Seydou Sarr (Marcello Mastroianni Award Best Young Actor) and Moustapha Fall with Ndeye Khady Sy, Oumar Diaw, Issaka Sawadogo.
Matteo Garrone on Io Capitano shot by Paolo Carnera: “Paolo put himself in the service of the story and he worked carefully on the light, but tried always to be natural, …”
Garrone’s Tale of Tales, based on Giambattista Basile’s early 17th century fairy tales,...
- 11/28/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The drama is Italy’s submission for the international film award at the Oscars.
Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone’s buzzy Venice title Io Capitano is to be distributed in the UK and Ireland by Altitude, released in cinemas from March 8 2024.
The drama has joined the Oscars race as Italy’s official submission for the international film prize, and has already won the Silver Lion for best director and the best young actor prize for Seydou Sarr at Venice, as well as picking up the best European film prize at San Sebastian.
It is nominated for best European film prize at the upcoming European Film Awards,...
Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone’s buzzy Venice title Io Capitano is to be distributed in the UK and Ireland by Altitude, released in cinemas from March 8 2024.
The drama has joined the Oscars race as Italy’s official submission for the international film prize, and has already won the Silver Lion for best director and the best young actor prize for Seydou Sarr at Venice, as well as picking up the best European film prize at San Sebastian.
It is nominated for best European film prize at the upcoming European Film Awards,...
- 11/14/2023
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Matteo Garrone’s talent for weaving stories out of the fabric of real events––especially those involving desperate or violent people––gets another airing in Io Capitano, an engrossing, visceral portrait of one young man’s brutal journey from Senegal to the coast of Italy. The director won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2008 for Gomorrah, his defining, excoriating portrait of the Camorra crime syndicate, and he performed the trick again ten years later in Dogman, inspired by a gruesome gangland murder in Rome. He’s also had success in comedies (Reality) and fantasy (Tale of Tales), but his new film is an epic embracing the defining issue of Italian politics right now––the flow of refugees crossing the Mediterranean heading for Europe––making a potentially abstract, no-less-urgent topic tactile and approachable.
The migrant crisis is having a moment this year in European cinema, with Agnieszka Holland’s recent Green Border,...
The migrant crisis is having a moment this year in European cinema, with Agnieszka Holland’s recent Green Border,...
- 9/27/2023
- by Ed Frankl
- The Film Stage
Film programming, like history, doesn’t repeat itself but does rhyme. This is proven by the fact that two highly complementary, equally excellent films about immigration, Me Captain (Io Capitano) and Green Border, both landed in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Agnieszka Holland’s meticulous Green Border offers a polyphonic examination of the plight of refugees trying to enter the EU through Belarus, but also encompasses the views of local Poles to create a panoramic, intellectually rigorous view of the situation. Italian director Matteo Garrone’s emotionally searing but ultimately uplifting epic, on the other hand, confines itself to the experience of Seydou, a 16-year-old boy from Senegal.
Indelibly played by non-professional Seydou Sarr, offering a remarkably mature performance, he makes his way with his cousin (Moustapha Fall) from their home in West Africa across thousands of miles on a quest to reach Europe. Taking viewers with...
Agnieszka Holland’s meticulous Green Border offers a polyphonic examination of the plight of refugees trying to enter the EU through Belarus, but also encompasses the views of local Poles to create a panoramic, intellectually rigorous view of the situation. Italian director Matteo Garrone’s emotionally searing but ultimately uplifting epic, on the other hand, confines itself to the experience of Seydou, a 16-year-old boy from Senegal.
Indelibly played by non-professional Seydou Sarr, offering a remarkably mature performance, he makes his way with his cousin (Moustapha Fall) from their home in West Africa across thousands of miles on a quest to reach Europe. Taking viewers with...
- 9/7/2023
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Italian genre specialist Stefano Sollima – who is known in Hollywood for “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Without Remorse” and the TV series “Gomorrah” – is in the Venice competition for the first time with Rome-set crime drama “Adagio.”
This beautifully shot picture features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”). It’s the tale of three old – and once mighty – mobsters searching for redemption in a cutthroat contemporary Rome that is literally burning. They find it in the form of a 16 year old named Manuel who is being blackmailed after venturing too deep in a rotting Roman underworld world that he doesn’t understand.
You often work from books such as “Gomorrah” but this is your original idea. How did it germinate?
“Adagio” – this is no secret – is a gift that I made to myself.
This beautifully shot picture features an ensemble cast of Italian A-listers comprising Pierfrancesco Favino (“Nostalgia”), Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”), Valerio Mastandrea (“Perfect Strangers”) and Adriano Giannini (“The Ties”). It’s the tale of three old – and once mighty – mobsters searching for redemption in a cutthroat contemporary Rome that is literally burning. They find it in the form of a 16 year old named Manuel who is being blackmailed after venturing too deep in a rotting Roman underworld world that he doesn’t understand.
You often work from books such as “Gomorrah” but this is your original idea. How did it germinate?
“Adagio” – this is no secret – is a gift that I made to myself.
- 9/7/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Even if the critical reactions have been mixed, Italian films have proven much stronger than usual at this year’s Venice Film Festival, with a notable resurgence of genre filmmaking in the likes of Adagio and Enea. Ironically, Matteo Garrone, the one local director in the selection whose actual stock in trade is genre of all stripes — gangster realism, satirical comedy (Reality), and baroque fantasy (Tale of Tales) — arrived this year with a blisteringly topical drama that might be his most traditional, and best, yet.
Migrant dreams are a hot topic this year, and Garrone’s Io Capitano (literally “Me Captain”) follows hard on the heels of Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, which covers the same topic from a different angle: where Holland’s film deals with the experience of immigrants as they arrive in Europe, Garrone’s film fills in some of that backstory, showing the punishing...
Migrant dreams are a hot topic this year, and Garrone’s Io Capitano (literally “Me Captain”) follows hard on the heels of Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, which covers the same topic from a different angle: where Holland’s film deals with the experience of immigrants as they arrive in Europe, Garrone’s film fills in some of that backstory, showing the punishing...
- 9/6/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Though it’s become a convenient catch-all term for journalists covering the subject, the phrase “European migrant crisis” can’t help but leave a sour taste in the mouth — implying as it does that Europe, the destination for so many hard-up voyagers from variously ailing or hostile countries, is the disadvantaged party in all this. That bias carries through to the bulk of well-intended films on the matter, which tend to pick up migrants’ stories, however sympathetically, on European turf. Breaking from such Italian titles as Jonas Carpignano’s “Mediterranea,” Emmanuele Crialese’s “Terraferma” and Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea,” Matteo Garrone’s stirring “Io Capitano” instead takes Europe not as its setting but as a near-mythic objective, tracing one Senegalese teen’s vast journey from Dakar to Tripoli to overloaded migrant boat in gripping, sometimes agonizing detail.
For Garrone, this proves an energizing shift in focus, yielding his most robust,...
For Garrone, this proves an energizing shift in focus, yielding his most robust,...
- 9/6/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, who is a two-time Cannes jury prizewinner, with “Gomorrah” in 2008 and “Reality” in 2012, is in competition at the Venice Film Festival for the first time with his immigration-themed drama “Io Capitano.”
Shot in Senegal, Italy and Morocco with a cast of largely non-professional actors, “Io Capitano” narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe. Garrone produced via his own company, Archimede, with Rai Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco and Belgium’s Tarantula Film on board as a co-producer. The drama is backed by Pathé, which is handling world sales through Pathé International.
Garrone spoke to Variety about what drew him to make a film depicting what he calls “the only real epic voyage we have today.” The voyage of immigrants from Africa “who cross through the desert, get put in prison camps, and then...
Shot in Senegal, Italy and Morocco with a cast of largely non-professional actors, “Io Capitano” narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe. Garrone produced via his own company, Archimede, with Rai Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco and Belgium’s Tarantula Film on board as a co-producer. The drama is backed by Pathé, which is handling world sales through Pathé International.
Garrone spoke to Variety about what drew him to make a film depicting what he calls “the only real epic voyage we have today.” The voyage of immigrants from Africa “who cross through the desert, get put in prison camps, and then...
- 9/6/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Matteo Garrone, who is a two-time Cannes jury prizewinner with “Gomorrah” in 2008 and “Reality” in 2012, is set to be in competition in Venice for the first time with his immigration-themed drama “Io Capitano.”
Shot over 13 weeks in Senegal, Italy and Morocco with a cast of non-professional actors, the Italian auteur’s new film – the title for which translates to “I Captain” – narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe. It depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea.
“‘Io Capitano’ was born from the idea of telling the epic journey of two young Senegalese migrants who cross Africa, with all its dangers, to pursue a dream called Europe,” Garrone said in a statement to Variety. “To make the film, we started from the true...
Shot over 13 weeks in Senegal, Italy and Morocco with a cast of non-professional actors, the Italian auteur’s new film – the title for which translates to “I Captain” – narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe. It depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea.
“‘Io Capitano’ was born from the idea of telling the epic journey of two young Senegalese migrants who cross Africa, with all its dangers, to pursue a dream called Europe,” Garrone said in a statement to Variety. “To make the film, we started from the true...
- 7/26/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Director Ramin Bahrani jumped at the chance to helm this film adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Man Booker prize-winning novel of the same name, cementing a place in the Iranian-American filmmaker’s repertoire of pictures where small men speak truth to power and underdogs shine. ‘The White Tiger’ is Bahrani’s first cinematic foray away from the confines of the voracious capitalism of America, this time taking him deep into the sights and sounds of an evolving India.
Bangalore 2010: We zoom into the mug of a wealthy-looking youngster, cigarette-in mouth and decked out in a black and maroon suit finery, looking like a million bucks.However, Balram (Adarsh Gourav) was not always the look of success he portrays. The kooky socio-realist comedy begins with Balram writing a lengthy email to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, inviting him to an unadulterated look at Modern India, told through his life story growing up.
Bangalore 2010: We zoom into the mug of a wealthy-looking youngster, cigarette-in mouth and decked out in a black and maroon suit finery, looking like a million bucks.However, Balram (Adarsh Gourav) was not always the look of success he portrays. The kooky socio-realist comedy begins with Balram writing a lengthy email to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, inviting him to an unadulterated look at Modern India, told through his life story growing up.
- 6/10/2022
- by Leon Overee
- AsianMoviePulse
Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks Out” lead the pack at the David di Donatello Awards this year with 16 nominations each.
Here’s the complete list of nominees:
Picture
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Director
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Debut Director
“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice
“Maternal,” Maura Delpero
“Small Body,” Laura Samani
“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis
“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile
Producer
“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...
Here’s the complete list of nominees:
Picture
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Director
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio,” Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out,” Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui Rido Io” (The King of Laughter), Mario Martone
Debut Director
“The Bad Poet,” Gianluca Jodice
“Maternal,” Maura Delpero
“Small Body,” Laura Samani
“Re Granchio” (The Legend of King Crab), Alessio Rigo De Righi, Matteo Zoppis
“Una Femmina” (The Code of Silence), Francesco Constabile
Producer
“A Chiara,” Jon Coplon, Paolo Carpignano, Ryan Zacarias, Jonas Carpignano (Stayblack Productions) — Rai Cinema
“Ariaferma” (The Inner Cage), Carlo Cresto...
- 4/30/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italy’s True Colours has taken world sales on Italian director Mario Martone’s Cannes competition entry “Nostalgia,” starring Pierfrancesco Favino, who is known to Cannes audiences as the protagonist of Marco Bellocchio’s 2019 drama “The Traitor.”
Set in Martone’s native Naples, “Nostalgia” sees Favino play the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he drowns into the memories of a distant life he spent in his hometown.
Martone will be returning to a Cannes competition berth with “Nostalgia” 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. His “The Scent of Blood” was in Directors’ Fortnight in 2004.
But the Neapolitan film and stage director has mostly been a Venice aficionado, most recently with “The Mayor of Rione Sanità” in 2019 and “The King of Laughter” in 2021, both sold by True Colours.
Set in Martone’s native Naples, “Nostalgia” sees Favino play the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he drowns into the memories of a distant life he spent in his hometown.
Martone will be returning to a Cannes competition berth with “Nostalgia” 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. His “The Scent of Blood” was in Directors’ Fortnight in 2004.
But the Neapolitan film and stage director has mostly been a Venice aficionado, most recently with “The Mayor of Rione Sanità” in 2019 and “The King of Laughter” in 2021, both sold by True Colours.
- 4/22/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been a while since Italian cinema has raised a major enfant terrible, but the country’s film industry firmly believes it has a pair in twin brothers Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo. Hot off a co-writing credit on Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman,” the duo (billed onscreen as The D’Innocenzo Brothers) made a splash and won a prize at last year’s Berlinale with their sophomore feature, the sleek, bleak, nihilistic suburban nightmare “Bad Tales.” Its themes were pretty well-worn, but its darkly chic styling was arresting enough to ensure plenty of chatter trailing their swiftly delivered third film “America Latina.”
Sadly, the hype is unfulfilled by this minor, tricked-out study of extreme midlife crisis, which shows little advancement in the brothers’ storytelling instincts, while underlining their knack for surly mood-building and elegantly sinister imagery. If anything, its thin, oblique blend of arch character study, dreamlike psychodrama and spindly...
Sadly, the hype is unfulfilled by this minor, tricked-out study of extreme midlife crisis, which shows little advancement in the brothers’ storytelling instincts, while underlining their knack for surly mood-building and elegantly sinister imagery. If anything, its thin, oblique blend of arch character study, dreamlike psychodrama and spindly...
- 9/11/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
At six of the last eight Oscars, Best Cinematography has gone hand-in-hand with Best Director: Claudio Miranda and Ang Lee for “Life of Pi” (2013); Emmanuel Lubezki and Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity” (2014); Lubezki and Alejandro G. Inarritu for both “Birdman” (2015) and “The Revenant” (2016); Linus Sandgren and Damien Chazelle for “La La Land” (2017); and Cuaron doing double duty on “Roma” (2019). Will that trend hold true this year? (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Cinematography.)
The academy usually regards award-winning cinematography as pretty pictures within an epic technical feat of filmmaking. While great lighting and framing are laudable on their own, having a movie that looks like it was difficult to shoot goes a long way to snagging an Oscar. Recent lensing winners “Avatar” (2009), “Inception” (2010), “Hugo” (2011), “Life of Pi” (2012), “Gravity” (2013), “Blade Runner 2049” (2018) and “1917” (2020) also took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
While the lensers of “Inception...
The academy usually regards award-winning cinematography as pretty pictures within an epic technical feat of filmmaking. While great lighting and framing are laudable on their own, having a movie that looks like it was difficult to shoot goes a long way to snagging an Oscar. Recent lensing winners “Avatar” (2009), “Inception” (2010), “Hugo” (2011), “Life of Pi” (2012), “Gravity” (2013), “Blade Runner 2049” (2018) and “1917” (2020) also took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
While the lensers of “Inception...
- 3/4/2021
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
Writer and director Ramin Bahrani returns to the Independent Spirit Awards with “The White Tiger,.” This Netflix film just earned a Best Actor nomination for Adarsh Gourav. The multi-hyphenate Bahrani also adapted Aravind Adiga‘s Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name.
“The White Tiger” tells the story of Balram Halwai (Gourav), a young boy from a low Indian caste whose wit and intellect gives promise to a future of upward mobility. After his father’s death he’s forced to remain in his village and take a job in the tea house just to help ends meet for his family. But, determined to escape the trappings of life at the bottom of Indian society, Balram, called a “once in a lifetime white tiger” by a teacher, sets off to Delhi with a plan to be a driver for a wealthy man’s son. When life in the big city...
“The White Tiger” tells the story of Balram Halwai (Gourav), a young boy from a low Indian caste whose wit and intellect gives promise to a future of upward mobility. After his father’s death he’s forced to remain in his village and take a job in the tea house just to help ends meet for his family. But, determined to escape the trappings of life at the bottom of Indian society, Balram, called a “once in a lifetime white tiger” by a teacher, sets off to Delhi with a plan to be a driver for a wealthy man’s son. When life in the big city...
- 2/5/2021
- by John Benutty
- Gold Derby
“The White Tiger” is poised to leap into awards contention now that it is streaming on Netflix after a limited run in theaters. Critics have already given it a resounding thumbs up, so its wider audience and positive word of mouth should help it break through as a contender in Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and across the board in both acting and the below the line crafts categories.
“The White Tiger” is on the rise in our combined odds, currently jostling with a bunch of other contenders just outside the main frontrunners group. But with great reviews behind it, the film could capitalize on the academy’s more diverse international membership. If enough of these rookie voters see this film, they might find it hard to resist embracing this exotic, well-received rags-to-riches success story.
The film is adapted by writer/director Ramin Bahrani from acclaimed novelist Aravind Adiga‘s...
“The White Tiger” is on the rise in our combined odds, currently jostling with a bunch of other contenders just outside the main frontrunners group. But with great reviews behind it, the film could capitalize on the academy’s more diverse international membership. If enough of these rookie voters see this film, they might find it hard to resist embracing this exotic, well-received rags-to-riches success story.
The film is adapted by writer/director Ramin Bahrani from acclaimed novelist Aravind Adiga‘s...
- 2/3/2021
- by Rob Licuria
- Gold Derby
Online, the memes are about guillotines, and at the movies, the stories are about why rich people should care about income inequality, if only for their own continued survival. Alongside Michel Franco’s blistering “New Order,” coming later this year, we get “The White Tiger,” Ramin Bahrani’s caustic adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s acclaimed novel about the lengths to which one man will go to climb out of his caste.
For as long as there has been literature, there have been tales of penniless men who advance by diligent hard work, cleverness, love, and perhaps a little larceny, but those narratives rarely address why the hero was penniless in the first place. “The White Tiger” illustrates the extremes to which the poor are driven to violate the rigid class structure of India, with the implication that our hero and his methodology is perhaps the face of post-superpower capitalism itself.
For as long as there has been literature, there have been tales of penniless men who advance by diligent hard work, cleverness, love, and perhaps a little larceny, but those narratives rarely address why the hero was penniless in the first place. “The White Tiger” illustrates the extremes to which the poor are driven to violate the rigid class structure of India, with the implication that our hero and his methodology is perhaps the face of post-superpower capitalism itself.
- 1/5/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Leonora Addio
Following the death of his brother and fellow co-director Vittorio Taviani in 2018, Paolo Taviani continues with his first solo effort Leonora Addio, based on the novella Il Chiodo by Nobel prize winner Luigi Pirandello. Produced through Rai Cinema and Donatella Palermo’s Stemal Entertainment, the project is headlined by Fabrizio Ferracane and Massimo Popolizio. Nicola Piovani provides the score, while regular Taviani Dp Simone Zampagni will lens alongside Paolo Carnera. The Taviani Bros. emerged as one of Italy’s most prominent filmmaking duos in the 1970s, winning the Palme d’Or in 1977 for Padre Padrone and Cannes would be great to them with their 1982 classic The Night of Shooting Stars with the brothers winning the Grand Prize of the Jury and the Ecumenical Jury Prize.…...
Following the death of his brother and fellow co-director Vittorio Taviani in 2018, Paolo Taviani continues with his first solo effort Leonora Addio, based on the novella Il Chiodo by Nobel prize winner Luigi Pirandello. Produced through Rai Cinema and Donatella Palermo’s Stemal Entertainment, the project is headlined by Fabrizio Ferracane and Massimo Popolizio. Nicola Piovani provides the score, while regular Taviani Dp Simone Zampagni will lens alongside Paolo Carnera. The Taviani Bros. emerged as one of Italy’s most prominent filmmaking duos in the 1970s, winning the Palme d’Or in 1977 for Padre Padrone and Cannes would be great to them with their 1982 classic The Night of Shooting Stars with the brothers winning the Grand Prize of the Jury and the Ecumenical Jury Prize.…...
- 1/4/2021
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
A new discovery is always welcomed in Hollywood, and breakout star Adarsh Gourav makes his presence well known in Netflix’s “The White Tiger.” Written and directed by acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani, the ambitious and intriguing tale is likely to draw lazy comparisons to Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” due to mere geographic location. Much darker with a more dense narrative, the film likely won’t have the same awards traction as the 2008 Oscar sweeper.
The film tells the story of Balram Halwai (Gourav), an Indian driver who uses his wit and cunning ways to make his rise from poor villager to successful entrepreneur in modern India.
In a year where Netflix has packed its awards arsenal with an eclectic showcase of films from a diverse set of filmmakers, Academy voters and guild members could find certain elements attractive, most prominently Gourav. His finding is sure to be praised...
The film tells the story of Balram Halwai (Gourav), an Indian driver who uses his wit and cunning ways to make his rise from poor villager to successful entrepreneur in modern India.
In a year where Netflix has packed its awards arsenal with an eclectic showcase of films from a diverse set of filmmakers, Academy voters and guild members could find certain elements attractive, most prominently Gourav. His finding is sure to be praised...
- 11/14/2020
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Yesterday, Netflix debuted a first look at another of their seemingly infinite number of Academy Award hopefuls. This one is The White Tiger, the latest flick from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, which unveiled a Teaser Trailer. With a best-selling book as its pedigree, there’s certainly a case to be made that this is yet another potential Oscar player for the streaming giant. Plus, having a non-white cast definitely will set it apart from something like Mank, for example. A lot remains to be seen, but the potential is there. You can see the Teaser Trailer below, at the end of the post, but first…some more on the project, as always. The movie is a drama, based on an acclaimed novel. The official synopsis from Netflix is as follows: “From acclaimed writer-director Ramin Bahrani comes the epic journey of a poor Indian driver (Adarsh Gourav) who uses his wit and...
- 10/29/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
At a surprise party for his daughter, a randy Italian homeowner studies a neighbor’s wife through the sliding glass door and describes all the ways he’d like to violate her. In the bathroom, his 14-year-old son sits with his best friend, studying the hardcore porn sites listed in the browsing history of Dad’s cellphone. A few days earlier and a couple doors down, a pregnant teen senses the prepubescent kid’s sexual curiosity and taunts him with a series of increasingly provocative acts. For example, when he offers her a cookie, she exposes a breast and gives a whole new meaning to “Got milk?”
Innocence is not a concept to be found in the D’Innocenzo Brothers’ cinematic oeuvre, which consists of two films so far: “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” both of which forgo the notion of childhood as a state of uncorrupted naivete. Rather, in the Italian siblings’ deeply cynically,...
Innocence is not a concept to be found in the D’Innocenzo Brothers’ cinematic oeuvre, which consists of two films so far: “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” both of which forgo the notion of childhood as a state of uncorrupted naivete. Rather, in the Italian siblings’ deeply cynically,...
- 2/25/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Walking to Paris
It’s been four years and counting as we await the next feature from Peter Greenaway, Walking to Paris, which the director was discussing prior to the premiere of his last film, 2015’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato. It looks like 2019 may finally be the year we may set eyes upon his take on sculptor Constantin Brancusi, which features a cast comprised of Emun Elliott, Carla Juri, Andrea Scarduzio, Paolo Bernardini, Marcella Mazzarella and Remo Girone. The film will feature the work of both Italian Dp Paolo Carnera and his usual collaborator, Dutch cinematographer Reinier van Brummelen.…...
It’s been four years and counting as we await the next feature from Peter Greenaway, Walking to Paris, which the director was discussing prior to the premiere of his last film, 2015’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato. It looks like 2019 may finally be the year we may set eyes upon his take on sculptor Constantin Brancusi, which features a cast comprised of Emun Elliott, Carla Juri, Andrea Scarduzio, Paolo Bernardini, Marcella Mazzarella and Remo Girone. The film will feature the work of both Italian Dp Paolo Carnera and his usual collaborator, Dutch cinematographer Reinier van Brummelen.…...
- 1/1/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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