A trio of moderate releases – One Life, The American Society Of Magical Negroes and Knox Goes Away join Janus Films’ celebration of master musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, and César award winning The Animal Kingdom as the next wave of 2024 indie films rolls out post-Oscars.
Focus Features’ American Society Of Magical Negroes, the feature directorial debut of Kobi Libii opens at 1,146 theaters across the North America. Premiered at Sundance, see Deadline review. A satirical comedy about a young man, Aren (Justice Smith) who is recruited by Roger (David Alan Grier) into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making sure white people never feel bad about themselves or get stressed out — because bad things happen when they do. Also stars Rupert Friend, Michaela Watkins, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver and Nicole Byer. Libii originally developed the project as an alumnus of both the Sundance Writers and Directors Labs.
Focus Features’ American Society Of Magical Negroes, the feature directorial debut of Kobi Libii opens at 1,146 theaters across the North America. Premiered at Sundance, see Deadline review. A satirical comedy about a young man, Aren (Justice Smith) who is recruited by Roger (David Alan Grier) into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making sure white people never feel bad about themselves or get stressed out — because bad things happen when they do. Also stars Rupert Friend, Michaela Watkins, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver and Nicole Byer. Libii originally developed the project as an alumnus of both the Sundance Writers and Directors Labs.
- 3/15/2024
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the most acclaimed films on the festival circuit last year, premiering at Berlinale and stopping by Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and New York film festivals, Zhang Lu’s meditative drama The Shadowless Tower will now get a U.S. theatrical release next month. Ahead of a March 15 release at NYC’s Metrograph, Strand Releasing have now debuted the new trailer and poster.
Here’s the synopsis: “Gu Wentong, a food critic facing a mid-life crisis, drifts through the local eateries of a vibrant Beijing with his young, female photographer Oyang whom he harbors an unspoken attraction. With his divorcé at hand and handling a 6-year-old daughter, he’s being pressured to correct an estranged relationship with his father who he hasn’t spoken to in decades. Looking for a new perspective on life while reconsidering his failings as a father, a son, and a lover, he’s forced...
Here’s the synopsis: “Gu Wentong, a food critic facing a mid-life crisis, drifts through the local eateries of a vibrant Beijing with his young, female photographer Oyang whom he harbors an unspoken attraction. With his divorcé at hand and handling a 6-year-old daughter, he’s being pressured to correct an estranged relationship with his father who he hasn’t spoken to in decades. Looking for a new perspective on life while reconsidering his failings as a father, a son, and a lover, he’s forced...
- 2/14/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Zhang Lu has been a festival-favorite director for some time, with his somewhat European art-house approach finding much resonance throughout the West. This approach finds one of its zeniths in his latest work, “The Shadowless Tower” a film that functions as an unusual road movie, inspired by the concept of the White Pagoda, a 13th-century Buddhist temple in Beijing, whose construction makes it rather hard to see its shadow.
Shadowless Tower is screening at Singapore International Film Festival
Gu Wentong is a relatively successful film critic, whose life, however, is not in its higher point. His daughter Smiley, a rather smart and humorous child, is living with his sister Wenhui and her husband Li Jun after his divorce, with him more visiting than actually raising her. Gu's mother has recently died, while the reason for her own divorce with his father, due to an accusation of molestation on a...
Shadowless Tower is screening at Singapore International Film Festival
Gu Wentong is a relatively successful film critic, whose life, however, is not in its higher point. His daughter Smiley, a rather smart and humorous child, is living with his sister Wenhui and her husband Li Jun after his divorce, with him more visiting than actually raising her. Gu's mother has recently died, while the reason for her own divorce with his father, due to an accusation of molestation on a...
- 11/27/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The latest film from the director of ‘Farewell My Concubine’ will be released in China in late September.
Fortissimo Films has secured international rights to Chinese war epic The Volunteers: To The War by Chen Kaige, the acclaimed director of Farewell My Concubine and The Battle At Lake Changjin.
The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company will launch sales on the feature at the Asian Contents and Film Market in Busan next month, following its release in China on September 28. The international sales agreement excludes North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The film, previously known as The Great War, is the...
Fortissimo Films has secured international rights to Chinese war epic The Volunteers: To The War by Chen Kaige, the acclaimed director of Farewell My Concubine and The Battle At Lake Changjin.
The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company will launch sales on the feature at the Asian Contents and Film Market in Busan next month, following its release in China on September 28. The international sales agreement excludes North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The film, previously known as The Great War, is the...
- 9/25/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
The title of writer-director Zhang Lu’s The Shadowless Tower refers to the Miaoying Temple, whose pagoda, built in Beijing in 1279, offers little to no shade thanks to its unique design. Throughout the film, the pagoda looms large over characters but is often placed far enough in the background to feel almost invisible, a paradox reflected in Gu Wentong (Xin Balqing), a divorced father whose life has settled into a dispassionate existence.
Having just lost his mother, Wentong is goaded out of his dull routine of work and care for his young daughter when his brother-in-law, Li Jun (Wang Hongwei), informs him of the whereabouts of the man’s long-estranged father, Yunlai. Jun’s nervous plea to not tell Wentong’s sister (Li Qinqin) about his contact with the man hints at a dark family history that nonetheless doesn’t stop Wentong from attempting to re-establish ties with his father.
Having just lost his mother, Wentong is goaded out of his dull routine of work and care for his young daughter when his brother-in-law, Li Jun (Wang Hongwei), informs him of the whereabouts of the man’s long-estranged father, Yunlai. Jun’s nervous plea to not tell Wentong’s sister (Li Qinqin) about his contact with the man hints at a dark family history that nonetheless doesn’t stop Wentong from attempting to re-establish ties with his father.
- 9/22/2023
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
Filmmaker Lu Chuan, perhaps the most prominent Chinese commercial filmmaker visiting Cannes this year, will touch down on the Côte d’Azur Saturday to shop three new projects — one finished documentary, one nearly complete sci-fi thriller in need of a global distributor, and an all-new drama feature seeking a U.S. co-production partner.
Lu is best known to the industry for his acclaimed early features Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) and City of Life and Death (2009), as well as adventure blockbuster Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe (2015) and the big-budget documentary he made for Disney and China Film Group, Born in China (2016).
He’ll arrive in Cannes with an early cut of Beijing 2022, the official documentary of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games that he directed with Chinese industry titan Zhang Yimou as executive producer. For the film, Lu was given unprecedented access to Beijing officials as they deliberated how to hold the Games...
Lu is best known to the industry for his acclaimed early features Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) and City of Life and Death (2009), as well as adventure blockbuster Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe (2015) and the big-budget documentary he made for Disney and China Film Group, Born in China (2016).
He’ll arrive in Cannes with an early cut of Beijing 2022, the official documentary of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games that he directed with Chinese industry titan Zhang Yimou as executive producer. For the film, Lu was given unprecedented access to Beijing officials as they deliberated how to hold the Games...
- 5/20/2023
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Beijing Basks In Festival Return
The Argentina-Chile coproduction “The Punishment,” directed by Matias Bize, was named best feature over the weekend at the close of the Beijing International Film Festival.
Mexico’s Lila Avilés won the Tiantan Award for best director for her film “Totem.” Antonia Zegers and Line Renaud shared the best actress award for “The Punishment” and “Driving Madeleine,” respectively.
The best actor award went to Xin Baiqing for Chinese movie “The Shadowless Tower.” The film, which premiered in February in Berlin, was the numerical winner. With the best screenplay, music, cinematography and artistic contribution awards, it won a total of five prizes.
Chinese actor and director Tian Zhuangzhuang collected the best supporting actor award. Mexican, Montserrat Maranon earned the best supporting actress prize.
The ceremony wrapped up a festival at which organizers claimed to have played 1,488 films. International guests included Israel’s Nadav Lapid, Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck...
The Argentina-Chile coproduction “The Punishment,” directed by Matias Bize, was named best feature over the weekend at the close of the Beijing International Film Festival.
Mexico’s Lila Avilés won the Tiantan Award for best director for her film “Totem.” Antonia Zegers and Line Renaud shared the best actress award for “The Punishment” and “Driving Madeleine,” respectively.
The best actor award went to Xin Baiqing for Chinese movie “The Shadowless Tower.” The film, which premiered in February in Berlin, was the numerical winner. With the best screenplay, music, cinematography and artistic contribution awards, it won a total of five prizes.
Chinese actor and director Tian Zhuangzhuang collected the best supporting actor award. Mexican, Montserrat Maranon earned the best supporting actress prize.
The ceremony wrapped up a festival at which organizers claimed to have played 1,488 films. International guests included Israel’s Nadav Lapid, Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck...
- 5/1/2023
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Watching over Beijing’s Xicheng district is an enormous white pagoda, a relic of the Kublai Khan rule, so majestic and otherworldly in looks and stature it might as well have been dropped on Earth from a far-flung planet. Legend has it the monument casts no shadow––not in its immediate vicinity, at least––though its silhouette is said to stretch as far as Tibet. No other corner of the megalopolis features as prominently as this one in Zhang Lu’s The Shadowless Tower, a film to which the 13th-century wonder lends its title as well as a metaphor for the kind of permanence its drifters fumble after. And no one among them is as drawn to it as Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing).
A middle-aged food critic, Gu’s the divorced father to a six-year-old daughter who’s been essentially adopted by his sister and her husband. His literary ambitions...
A middle-aged food critic, Gu’s the divorced father to a six-year-old daughter who’s been essentially adopted by his sister and her husband. His literary ambitions...
- 2/20/2023
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
The central characters in The Shadowless Tower are orphaned, disconnected, separated from the roots that give them an emotional and spiritual mooring. The loss of his elderly mother prompts a divorced, middle-aged food critic to seek out the father from whom he’s been estranged since childhood, shaking him out of his torpor and causing him to re-examine his relationships. Chinese writer-director Zhang Lu’s minor-key drama will be too muted and elusive to break beyond festivals, but its melancholy spell stays with you.
The structure that gives the film its oblique title is the Yuan Dynasty White Pagoda, soaring high above Beijing’s Xicheng district but believed to cast a shadow only on the faraway Tibetan planes. Perhaps because he feels simultaneously stuck and adrift in a life going nowhere since his divorce two years earlier, former poet Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) regards this prominent architectural feature of the...
The structure that gives the film its oblique title is the Yuan Dynasty White Pagoda, soaring high above Beijing’s Xicheng district but believed to cast a shadow only on the faraway Tibetan planes. Perhaps because he feels simultaneously stuck and adrift in a life going nowhere since his divorce two years earlier, former poet Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) regards this prominent architectural feature of the...
- 2/18/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Slate includes features in Competition, Encounters, Forum and Panorama sections
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique has unveiled a six-title Berlinale slate, including Zhang Lu’s competition title The Shadowless Tower as well as features playing in the festival’s Encounters, Forum and Panorama sections.
Films Boutique is representing two films playing in Encounters: Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann’s The Klezmer Project and Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó’s White Plastic Sky.
It is also handling director Claire Simon’s Forum documentary Our Body and Amr Gamal’s Panorama film The Burdened.
Rounding out Films Boutique’s EFM slate is Jessica Woodworth’s Luka,...
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique has unveiled a six-title Berlinale slate, including Zhang Lu’s competition title The Shadowless Tower as well as features playing in the festival’s Encounters, Forum and Panorama sections.
Films Boutique is representing two films playing in Encounters: Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann’s The Klezmer Project and Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó’s White Plastic Sky.
It is also handling director Claire Simon’s Forum documentary Our Body and Amr Gamal’s Panorama film The Burdened.
Rounding out Films Boutique’s EFM slate is Jessica Woodworth’s Luka,...
- 2/1/2023
- by Emilio Mayorga
- ScreenDaily
The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition as well as its sidebar Encounters competitive section.
A total of 18 films have been selected for the international competition with highlights including Christian Petzold’s latest film Roter Himmel (Afire), Margarethe von Trotta directing Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps in Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert, and Philippe Garrel returns with a new feature titled The Plough.
Scroll down for the full lineup.
This morning the festival also revealed an extra special screening: Actor and filmmaker Sean Penn will debut a documentary titled Superpower, a film shot in Ukraine last year at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion and follows president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16-26.
Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. The festival had initially done a good job of increasing...
A total of 18 films have been selected for the international competition with highlights including Christian Petzold’s latest film Roter Himmel (Afire), Margarethe von Trotta directing Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps in Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert, and Philippe Garrel returns with a new feature titled The Plough.
Scroll down for the full lineup.
This morning the festival also revealed an extra special screening: Actor and filmmaker Sean Penn will debut a documentary titled Superpower, a film shot in Ukraine last year at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion and follows president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16-26.
Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. The festival had initially done a good job of increasing...
- 1/23/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Most of us have a kind of bucket list with things like visiting distant places, doing something we are scared of but attracted to, saying ‘no’ to someone who made our life miserable, building a thing that would make other people jealous or whatever floats our individual boats. We would probably have even more ideas if the clock was ticking faster than one would like it to. What would be that one thing we absolutely needed to do if we had the worst of all news being delivered to us?
“Yanagawa ” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
Zhang Lu builds the plot of his gentle drama “Yanagawa” around that concept, sending Dong on a trip to “Venice of Japan” Yanagawa with his older brother Li Chun (Bai Qing Xin). Dong has been diagnosed with 4th stage of cancer, and it’s a road of no return which he silently accepts,...
“Yanagawa ” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
Zhang Lu builds the plot of his gentle drama “Yanagawa” around that concept, sending Dong on a trip to “Venice of Japan” Yanagawa with his older brother Li Chun (Bai Qing Xin). Dong has been diagnosed with 4th stage of cancer, and it’s a road of no return which he silently accepts,...
- 2/7/2022
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
Most of us have a kind of bucket list with things like visiting distant places, doing something we are scared of but attracted to, saying ‘no’ to someone who made our life miserable, building a thing that would make other people jealous or whatever floats our individual boats. We would probably have even more ideas if the clock was ticking faster than one would like it to. What would be that one thing we absolutely needed to do if we had the worst of all news being delivered to us?
Zhang Lu builds the plot of his gentle drama “Yanagawa” around that concept, sending Dong on a trip to “Venice of Japan” Yanagawa with his older brother Li Chun (Bai Qing Xin). Dong has been diagnosed with 4th stage of cancer, and it’s a road of no return which he silently accepts, deciding not to lose the word about...
Zhang Lu builds the plot of his gentle drama “Yanagawa” around that concept, sending Dong on a trip to “Venice of Japan” Yanagawa with his older brother Li Chun (Bai Qing Xin). Dong has been diagnosed with 4th stage of cancer, and it’s a road of no return which he silently accepts, deciding not to lose the word about...
- 12/12/2021
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
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