Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.
NEWS
Above: Kenneth Branagh's Belfast.
- The Toronto International Film Festival has come to a close, with Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical drama Belfast claiming the TIFF People’s Choice Award and Kamila Andini's coming-of-age film Yuni taking home the Platform Prize.
- Hot off of last year's Tenet, Christopher Nolan has made a deal with Universal to back his next film, which is centered on the theoretical physicist and one of the "fathers of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer. The deal marks the end of Nolan's lengthy working relationship with Warner Bros. and gives the auteur "total creative control, at least a 100-day theatrical window, around a $100 million budget, equal marketing spend, 20 percent of first-dollar gross, and a blackout period where the studio would not release another movie for three weeks before and after the feature."
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- In a collaboration with his daughter Caitlin Cronenberg, David Cronenberg is releasing a new short film as an NFT. Entitled The Death of David Cronenberg, the film is a 1-minute meditation on mortality starring the director himself.
- From Searchlight Pictures, the official teaser for Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, starring Bradley Cooper as an "ambitious carny" who gets caught up with a dangerous psychiatrist, played by Cate Blanchett. The film is based on the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, which was also adapted in 1947 by director Edmund Goulding.
- A24 has released a trailer for The Tragedy of Macbeth, from writer and director Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. The film arrives to theaters December 25, and will be streaming on Apple TV+ January 14.
- Ava Duvernay's ARRAY Releasing has partnered with Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima for a 4K restoration of his 1993 film, Sankofa. The beloved film, which was developed from 20 years of research into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, will be available on Netflix September 24.
- Metrograph presents a new trailer for its 4k restoration of Andrzej Żuławski's Possession, which will open theatrically and digitally exclusively at Metrograph on October 1, then nationwide October 15.
- An international trailer for Kiro Russo's El Gran Movimiento, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize in the Orizzonti sidebar. Read our review of the film here.
- NEON's official teaser for Joachim Trier's "modern dramedy" The Worst Person in the World, the third film in Trier's Oslo Trilogy.
- The North American trailer for Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes' The Tsugua Diaries, which will play in the Currents section of the New York Film Festival.
- A new trailer from Film Movement for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, which is coming to theaters October 15.
- From A24, the official trailer for Stephen Karam's The Humans, which premiered recently at TIFF. The Humans is an adaptation of Karam's one-act play, which follows a tense family gathering at Thanksgiving.
- This week's presentation on Le cinéma club is interdisciplinary performance artist Joan Jonas' Vertical Roll (1972), a "glitchy, subversive self-portrait."
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: Sion Sono's Prisoners of the Ghostland.
- In an interview with Bilge Ebiri, Sion Sono discusses his latest film Prisoners of the Ghostland, and working with Nicolas Cage, who plays a criminal named Hero sent on a journey to the titular Ghostland. Chingy Nea at Mel Magazine has also written a longer introduction for those baffled by Sono's unhinged filmography.
- Reverse Shot has published two dispatches from the Toronto International Film Festival: Kelli Weston on the ghost stories in the lineup, and Lawrence Garcia on the essential Wavelengths program.
- The newest issue of Town & Country features John Waters on its cover. In an interview with the Pope of Trash and the magazine's "most surprising, and devoted, subscriber," Waters discusses his writing process during the pandemic and his thoughts on good and bad taste.
- "This being a Late Eastwood movie, Cry Macho’s style maddeningly splits the difference between laziness and mastery, and offers plenty of grist for the auteurist mill." The Ringer's Adam Nayman reviews Clint Eastwood's latest, Cry Macho.
- For Calvert Journal, Savina Petkova provides a career overview of the prolific Bulgarian filmmaker Binka Zhelyazkova, whose 1967 satirical film The Tied-Up Balloon was pulled from the Venice International Film Festival by Bulgarian authorities.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- Composed by Eiko Ishibashi, the original soundtrack to Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car is out now and available for streaming on Spotify. There's also a lovely music video for the theme song, entitled "Drive My Car."
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- From Michael Sicinski, a comprehensive rundown of all of the films playing in this year's Wavelengths program at the Toronto International Film Festival.
- The newest Movie Poster of the Week entry is dedicated to the many faces in movie posters of the late, great French cinema icon Jean-Paul Belmondo.
- Jennifer Lynde Barker reflects on five short films shown at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
- Wilfred Okiche examines two films made through the Generation Africa project: Ousmane Samassékou's The Last Shelter and Aïcha Macky's Zinder.
- Celluloid Liberation Project reports on the Locarno Film Festival's recent Alberto Lattuada retrospective.
- Matheus Pestana takes an archival look into a time when many of Hollywood's greats descended upon Brazil.