The Nothing FactoryBefore we wrap our coverage of Cannes, a few words most definitely should be said for two of the strongest films—both Portuguese—at the Directors’ Fortnight and, indeed, at the festival in general. Both premiered towards the end and may have gotten lost in the dwindling energy and subpar premieres common to the exhausted final days' wind-down, but they are absolutely notable.The Nothing Factory is the film debut of Pedro Pinho, who previously made a short feature and co-directed two documentaries, one of which with Luisa Homem, who edited this new picture, as well as co-wrote it with the production collaborative Terratreme Filmes. Partially based on a Dutch play by Judith Herzberg and inspired by an idea by Jorge Silva Melo (who wrote Manuel Mozo’s unjustly forgotten 1992 masterpiece, Xavier), the film dramatizes the dissolution of an elevator factory in Portugal, an action that sneakily comes...
- 5/31/2017
- MUBI
5. Cinema in a Minor Key Weekend 5 - Feb.14-16th“minor key noun 1: a musical key or tonality in the minor mode; 2: a mood of melancholy or pathos; 3: a restrained manner: a small or limited scale.” in Merriam-Webster DictionaryThe fifth Harvard-Gulbenkian program focuses upon a trio of artists- Manuel Mozos, Argentine filmmaker Martín Rejtman and Quebec-based Canadian director Denis Côté - who similarly embrace a refreshingly alternate idea(l) of cinema - a deliberately "minor" mode of cinema grounded in the specificity of the resolutely local places explored by their films and in the delicate balance achieved by their greatest work between melancholy and wry humor, realism and fantasy. Offering nuanced, muted and minor reinventions of traditional genres, the deadpan screwball comedy of Rejtman’s Silvia Prieto and the minimalist melodramas of Mozos’ Xavier and Côté’s Curling are charged with profound political nuance and a lasting...
- 3/27/2015
- by Cinema Dialogues: Harvard at the Gulbenkian
- MUBI
Entering its second year, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look series provides a strong, welcome antidote to the generally anemic cinematic landscape that is January. Its eclectic selection of undistributed features and shorts, programmed by Dennis Lim, Rachael Rakes, and David Schwartz, occasions an invigorating mixture of moods and approaches from established as well as emerging directors. It’s indicative of the series’ dedication to distinctive, often divisive cinematic voices that Bruno Dumont’s decidedly non-crowd-pleasing Hors Satan was chosen as the opening night film nearly two years following its Cannes premiere.
Whereas earlier films like Twentynine Palms or Hadewijch pushed the French director’s worldview in new directions, Hors Satan sits solidly in Dumont’s comfort zone, down to the cryptically religious title that links it to his debut, The Life of Jesus. His protagonist is a drifter with a scruffy, narrow face like Pasolini’s proletarian Christ,...
Whereas earlier films like Twentynine Palms or Hadewijch pushed the French director’s worldview in new directions, Hors Satan sits solidly in Dumont’s comfort zone, down to the cryptically religious title that links it to his debut, The Life of Jesus. His protagonist is a drifter with a scruffy, narrow face like Pasolini’s proletarian Christ,...
- 1/11/2013
- by Fernando F. Croce
- MUBI
News.
Lola, one of our favorite film journals, has released some content from their third issue. The articles include a piece by Dana Linssen on the film Nadine, among others, and the nature of feminist cinephilia. Also, you shouldn't miss this collective approach (part one of two) to Holy Motors. More cinephilic delight: the full version of the Flemish film journal Photogénie is now online, featuring Tom Paulus on Olivier Assayas, Sarah Keller on Jean Epstein, and an interview with Girish Shambu. Birthdays: Hayao Miyazaki turned 72 on the 5th (speaking of which, check this out) and Jean-Marie Straub turned 80 yesterday (David Hudson has collected some related material).
Finds.
"Happy New Years", Apichatpong-style: a brief short entitled 2013. Above: new images from Hong Sang-soo's new film, Nobody's Daughter Haewon, set to debut in Berlin next month. Via Moving Image Source, filmmaker Miguel Gomes writes on Manuel Mozos and the film Xavier:
"As I see it,...
Lola, one of our favorite film journals, has released some content from their third issue. The articles include a piece by Dana Linssen on the film Nadine, among others, and the nature of feminist cinephilia. Also, you shouldn't miss this collective approach (part one of two) to Holy Motors. More cinephilic delight: the full version of the Flemish film journal Photogénie is now online, featuring Tom Paulus on Olivier Assayas, Sarah Keller on Jean Epstein, and an interview with Girish Shambu. Birthdays: Hayao Miyazaki turned 72 on the 5th (speaking of which, check this out) and Jean-Marie Straub turned 80 yesterday (David Hudson has collected some related material).
Finds.
"Happy New Years", Apichatpong-style: a brief short entitled 2013. Above: new images from Hong Sang-soo's new film, Nobody's Daughter Haewon, set to debut in Berlin next month. Via Moving Image Source, filmmaker Miguel Gomes writes on Manuel Mozos and the film Xavier:
"As I see it,...
- 1/9/2013
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Like a lot of late (oft-fetish) objects of cinephilia (cf. Django Unchained, Holy Motors, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, the films of Gabriel Abrantes, even, or perhaps most of all, This Is Not a Film), Miguel Gomes' Tabu is a sutured fantasy, that is, with the seams showing: all calculating formal frameworks for cute fantasy only end up referring back to their production history (as documentary), as well as the same national history the self-contained storyline was supposed to shield against. Of course the point is simple: stories are cultural products, and as in the African documentaries of Salzar's chief propagandist, António Lopes Ribeiro, Gomes' stories end up revealing everything they're designed to evade. Until its late swerve into unremitting pastiche, the point when cultural history collapses into a Forrest Gump crime scene, Tabu, like so many Portuguese films with their cheap resources and love letter narrators, straddles the...
- 12/28/2012
- by David Phelps
- MUBI
Jornal de Notícias is among the Portuguese news outlets reporting today that Pedro Hestnes, the actor best known internationally for his performances in Pedro Costa's Blood and Casa de Lava and Manuel Mozos's Xavier, has succumbed to cancer at the age of 49. His funeral will be held this afternoon at the Camarate cemetery in Loures. Hestnes had just completed work on Catarina Ruivo's Em segunda mão, currently in post-production, and was first diagnosed just two months ago.
- 6/21/2011
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.