All Venice articles – Page 96
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News
Jia Zhangke plans factory worker film before 2008
Golden Lion winning director Jia Zhangke, whose new documentary Useless about the fashion industry screened in Venice's Horizons last week and in Toronto this week, has revealed further details of his next dramatic feature, which he is planning to have ready in time for the Olympic Games in Beijing in ...
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News
TF1 takes on Suso's Tower and Mutum
France's TF1 International has acquired Suso's Tower heading into festival season. The film is in selection at San Sebastian and is directed by Tom Fernandez with Javier Camara, Gonzalo De Castro, Cesar Vea and Jose Luis Alcobendas making up the cast. Produced by Mediapro, the film tells the story of ...
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Reviews
Disengagement
Dir. Amos Gitai. France / Israel / Germany / Italy , 2007. 115 mins.Amos Gitai's systematic chronicle of modern Israeli history reaches one of its more sensitive and inevitable points in this dramatised version of the recent crisis generated by the unilateral decision, taken by the Sharon government, to dismantle ...
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Reviews
The Secret Of The Grain (La Graine Et Le Mulet)
Dir/Scr: Abdellatif Kechiche , France , 2007, 153mins.A cine-verite tour-de-force, Abdellatif Kechiche's follow-up to the award- winning L'Esquive loads an apparently slight story set against the background of France 's first-and-second generation Maghrebi immigrant communities with surprising dramatic weight. There's even less story and even more of the director's trademark ...
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News
Loach's Free World lands more buyers in Venice
In advance of its Toronto screening, Ken Loach's It's A Free World has closed several more deals for Pathe Pictures International in Venice.The immigration-themed film has gone to Japan (Cinequanon), Portugal (Lusomundo), and Greece (Audiovisuel).Pathe's Mike Runagall is also reporting strong US interest in the film. 'Venice was very positive ...
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Reviews
The Hunting Party
Dir: Richard Shepard USA 2007. 100mins A textbook study in the dangers of trying to have one's cake and eat it, The Hunting Party mixes earnest sentimentality and black comedy in an unlikely yarn about the search for a Bosnian Serb war criminal by a maverick TV news crew. On ...
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News
Mad Detective screens as Venice's surprise competition entry
The Venice Film festival unveiled Hong Kong crime film Mad Detective as this year's competition surprise film entry on Wednesday night.Co-directed by Hong Kong action film specialist Johnnie To and producer/director Wai Ka Fai, the film was presented Wednesday night at a press screening with no official pre-announcement but widespread ...
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Reviews
The Sun Also Rises (Taiyang zhaochang shengqi)
Dir. Jiang Wen. China , 2007. 116 min . Five years in preparation and three years in the making, Jiang Wen's explosively energetic third feature film is a feast for the eyes and a delight for the ears. But at the same time this may prove a perplexing, often infuriating ...
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Reviews
Help Me Eros (2007)
Dir. Lee Kang Sheng. Taiwan , 2007. 103minsBest known as Tsai Ming Liang's regular lead actor, Lee Kang Sheng's second feature film will cater mainly for the regular followers of Tsai's special brand of cinema - slow, minimalist, obsessive and heavily reliant on such compulsive fixations as sex and food, ...
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Reviews
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (Les Amours D'Astree et de Celadon)
Dir: Eric Rohmer France /Spain/Italy 2007. 109minsThere are two Eric Rohmers. The more popular is the detached comic observer of modern emotional dilemmas, the maker of the Moral Comedies and Four Seasons series. The other is a sometimes forbidding experimental contriver of historical and literary dramas, such as Perceval le ...
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Reviews
Far North
Dir: Asif Kapadia France/UK. 89 mins.With this dark tale of a supernaturally-tinged love triangle dark set in the frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle, Asif Kapadia returns to the myth-rooted dreamscape of his 2001 debut, The Warrior, after an uninspiring studio hiatus (Rogue/Focus Features' horror-flop The Return). But as a ...
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News
Mad Detective screens as surprise entry to Venice competion
The Venice Film festival unveiled Mad Detective, co-directed by Hong Kong action film specialist Johnnie To and producer/director Wai Ka Fai, as a surprise competition entry. Mad Detective, produced by To's production company Milkyway Image, is the story of a rookie cop who teams up with an unvonventional criminal ...
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Reviews
Fallen Heroes (Nessuna qualità agli eroi)
Dir: Paolo Franchi It/Switz. 2007. 100 mins.Paolo Franchi is the true heir to Antonioni among the current crop of young Italian directors: he's fascinated by passive, blocked, brooding characters, by emotions that can hardly be translated into images, let alone words. And like the films of the late lamented Ferrarese ...
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News
Venice exodus begins as international players head to Toronto
As Venice's first weekend wraps and Toronto's opening looms on Thursday, the traditional mid-Venice festival migration has already begun. Industry delegates are leaving the Lido en masse, despite Venice - one of the world's most prestigious (and oldest) film festivals - continuing through Saturday. 'That's a big problem. Venice or ...
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Reviews
Michael Clayton
Dir:Tony Gilroy USA , 2007, 119 mins George Clooney isn't out to break the mould with Michael Clayton, a slow, moody and insomniac thriller which wears its social conscience very much on its sleeve. In Syriana andGood Night and Good Luck (and to some extent The Good German) audiences have ...
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News
Italian distributor cancels Woody Allen screenings in Venice
There were angry scenes in Venice over the weekend when it emerged that Italian distributor Filmauro had cancelled three of the five screenings planned for Woody Allen's new feature, Cassandra's Dream, starring Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor. The reasons for the last-minute cancellations were shrouded in mystery. Some well-placed sources ...
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News
Ang Lee plans safer edit of Lust, Caution for Chinese audiences
Since its Venice world premiere, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution has created whatFocus boss James Schamus is calling 'a tidal wave of interest' across Asia.The Asian response has been largely positive. Lee's steamy espionagethriller will be given a major Asian release later in the autumn. However,controversy is already dogging the film ...
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News
Babelgum recruits Spike Lee to judge new online shorts festival
New Internet TV platform Babelgum has announced plans to launch a new online film festival for films up to 45 minutes long.At a press conference in Venice, Babelgum CEO Valerio Zingarelli also announced that Spike Lee will serve as an honorary judge of the Babelgum Online Film Festival. Zingarelli $20,000 ...
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Reviews
Redacted
Dir: Brian De Palma, US, 2007. 90minsDesigned to resemble an American's soldier video blog from Iraq , with additional footage from a French-language pseudo-documentary, YouTube clips and reports from local TV crews, Brian de Palma's attempt to reveal some of the expurgated truth behind the media coverage of the war ...