Venice Film Festival 2018 Preview

Venice 2018

Venice Film Festival

29 August – 08 September 2018

Venice, Italy

Venice website

The line-up of the 75th Venice Film Festival has been revealed.

The Venice Film Festival has announced the line-up for it’s 75th anniversary edition and it proves to be as intriguing and surprising as ever.

Damien Chazelle is opening the festival and the competition with his Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, while Bradley Cooper’s directing debut A Star Is Born is set to screen out of competition.

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises in the competition line-up after the whole Netflix debacle in Cannes is the Coen Brothers’ TV-series-turned-movie anthology The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs. Other exciting competition titles include Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, the Jacques Audiard Western The Sisters Brothers, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite and Julien Schabel’s Vincent Van Gogh portrait At Eternity’s Gate with Willem Dafoe, Oscar Isaac, Rupert Friend and Mads Mikkelsen.

Also promising looks Vox Lux, the latest offering from Childhood Of A Leader director Brady Corbet, while the sole female director in competition is Jennifer Kent with her Babadook follow-up, The Nightingale.

Out of competition, we look forward to Pablo Trapero’s new film La Quietud, Shadow by Chinese master Zhang Yimou and S Craig Zahlers latest brutal offering Dragged Across Concrete. Terrence Malick’s 180-minute The Tree Of Life (Extended Cut) is screening in the Sconfini section, while Orson Welles’ previously unfinished film, The Other Side Of The Wind, will be presented as a special event.

As for the documentaries on offer this year, Errol Morris’ American Dharma stands out, alongside the Peter Bogdonavich-directed doc about legendary silent film star Buster Keaton entitled The Great Buster. Mark Cousins also returns to Venice with Women Making Films: A New Road Movie Through Cinema and William Friedkin is the subject of Francesco Zippel’s Friedkin Uncut.

Pamela Jahn

Check out the full line up below

VENICE 75 COMPETITION
First Man, dir: Damien Chazelle
The Mountain, dir: Rick Alverson
Doubles Vies, dir: Olivier Assayas
The Sisters Brothers, dir: Jacques Audiard
The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, dirs: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Vox Lux, dir: Brady Corbet
22 July, dir: Paul Greengrass
Roma, dir: Alfonso Cuaron
Suspiria, dir: Luca Guadagnino
Werk Ohne Autor, dir: Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
The Nightingale, dir: Jennifer Kent
The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthiomos
Peterloo, dir: Mike Leigh
Capri-Revolution, dir: Mario Martone
What You Gonna Do When The World’s On Fire?, dir: Roberto Minervini
Sunset, dir: Laszlo Nemes
Frères Ennemis, dir: David Oelhoffen
Nuestro Tiempo, dir: Carlos Reygadas
At Eternity’s Gate, dir: Julian Schnabel
Acusada, dir: Gonzalo Tobal
Killing, dir: Shinya Tsukamoto

OUT OF COMPETITION (FICTION)
A Star Is Born, dir: Bradley Cooper
Mi Obra Maestra, dir: Gaston Duprat
Un Peuple Et Son Roi, dir: Pierre Schoeller
A Tramway In Jerusalem, dir: Amos Gitai
La Quietud, dir: Pablo Trapero
Shadow, dir: Zhang Yimou
Dragged Across Concrete, dir: S Craig Zahler
The Other Side Of The Wind, dir: Orson Welles
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, dir: Morgan Neville

OUT OF COMPETITION (NON-FICTION)
A Letter To A Friend In Gaza, dir: Amos Gitai
Aquarela, dir: Victor Kossakovsky
El Pepe, Una Vida Suprema, dir: Emir Kusturica
Process, dir: Sergei Loznitsa
Carmine Street Guitars, dir: Ron Mann
Isis, Tomorrow. The Lost Souls Of Mosul, dirs: Francesca Mannocchi, Alessio Romenzi
American Dharma, dir: Errol Morris
Introduzione All’Oscuro, dir: Gaston Solnicki
Your Face, dir: Tsai Ming-Liang
1938 Diversi, dir: Giorgi Treves
Monrovia, Indiana, dir: Frederick Wiseman
Una Storia Senza Nome, dir: Roberto Ando
Les Estivants, dir: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

ORIZZONTI
Sulla Mia Pelle, dir: Alessio Cremonini (opening film)
Manta Ray, dir: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Soni, dir: Ivan Ayr
The River, dir: Emir Baigazin
La Noche De 12 Anos, dir: Alvaro Brechner
Deslembro, dir: Flavia Castro
The Announcement, dir: Mahmut Fazil Coskun
Un Giorno All’Improvviso, dir: Ciro D’Emilio
Charlie Says, dir: Mary Harron
Amanda, dir: Mikhael Hers
The Day I Lost My Shadow, dir: Soudade Kaadan
L’Enkas, dir: Sarah Marx
The Man Who Surprised Everyone, dirs: Natasha Merkulova, Aleksy Chupov
Memories Of My Body, dir: Garin Nugroho
As I Lay Dying, dir: Mostafa Sayyari
La Profezia Dell’Armadillo, dir: Emanuele Scaringi
Tel Aviv On Fire, dir: Sameh Zoabi
Jinpa, dir: Pema Tseden
Stripped, dir: Yaron Shani

For more information about the programme visit the Venice website.

Cannes 2018 Preview

Cannes 2018

Cannes International Film Festival
8-19 May 2018
Cannes, France
Cannes website

The Cannes Film Festival is planning to shake things up a bit during its 71st edition.

When the official festival line-up was announced last month, a sigh went through the crowd. Not only had Netflix been barred from this year’s Official Competition, but what’s worse was the repeatedly low number of female directors on display – only three out of 21 this time, undoubtedly a meagre result.

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21 May 2018: Sex, Politics, Art and Revolution: French Cinema in 1968

21 May 2018: Sex, Politics, Art and Revolution: French Cinema in 1968

Lecturer: Virginie Sélavy
Dates: 21 May 2018
Time: 7pm
Venue: Close-Up Film Centre, London
Fees: £15 / £12 conc. / £10 Close-Up members
Close-Up website

Electric Sheep founder Virginie Sélavy explores the influence of May 68 on the major French films released that year and looks at their contrasting vision.

1968 was a year of revolutionary turmoil all over the world, from anti-Vietnam war, feminist activism and civil rights protests in the USA to student demonstrations in Japan and Mexico and uprisings in Poland and Czechoslovakia. In France, student protests and a general workers’ strike brought the country to a standstill in May 68, marking a key moment of social, ideological and generational rupture.

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Electric Sheep Film Show February 2018

Blade Runner

audioBooks on film – Blade Runner and The Prisoner: In this month’s show, Alex Fitch talks to two exceptional writer-directors about their writing on film and adapting classic texts into movies. Alex Cox discusses his book I Am (Not) a Number, which investigates a potential solution to the mystery of The Prisoner, and two of his films: Three Businessmen and Death and the Compass, which is based on the short story by Jorge Luis Borges.

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Berlinale 2018 Preview

Berlinale 2018

Berlin International Film Festival
15 – 25 February 2018
Berlin, Germany
Berlinale website

With over 400 films on show, the Berlinale offers an incredibly eclectic, fun and hugely exciting blend of new cinema.

With over 400 films to screen over the next ten days, the Berlinale retains the lead as the first big European festival event of the year. The selection films presented in Competition this time round reach from high-profile premieres like Wes Anderson’s fantastical new stop-motion animated feature Isle of Dogs, which serves as the festival’s opening feature, and Gus Van Sants Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot , starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, and Udo Kier, to bold new works from always exciting directors such as Christian Petzold (Transit), Philip Gröning (My Brother’s Name is Robert and He is an Idiot), Laura Bispuri (Figlia mia), Lav Diaz (Season of the Devil) and Steven Soderbergh (Unsane), starring Claire Foy and shot completely on iPhone.

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Electric Sheep Film Show Special: 50 Years of The Prisoner

The Prisoner: Living in Harmony

audio50 Years of The Prisoner: A special two hour programme celebrating the 50th anniversary of classic cult TV show The Prisoner. Alex Fitch talks to two editors of the show – Ian Rakoff and John S. Smith – and hosts a live commentary track for the episode ‘Living in Harmony’ with Smith, Rakoff (who also wrote the episode), Prisoner historian Rick Davy, and Rob Fairclough, writer of The Official Prisoner Companion book.

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Electric Sheep Film Show October 2017

Video Dungeon
Cover art for Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon

audioHalloween Horrors: In this month’s Halloween themed episode of the Electric Sheep Film Show, Virginie Sélavy talks to Kim Newman about his new collection of reviews and essays, Video Dungeon, published by Titan Books, and to cinema programmer Anna Bogutskaya about co–curating a tour of short horror films directed by women: ‘The Final Girls – We Are the Weirdos’.

Continue reading Electric Sheep Film Show October 2017