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The final wave of this year's Fantasia International Film Festival has been announced! Along with many new movies and special screenings, they have horror events you'll want to make time for, including panels and a career achievement award for Mike Flanagan. Fantasia's 28th edition continues tradition of putting together a stellar, eclectic mix of screenings and events you won't want to miss. For the full list of films and events, and to find out how to attend the fest, visit: https://fantasiafestival.com/en

The Fantasia International Film Festival will celebrate its upcoming 28th edition with an electrifying program of screenings, workshops, and launch events running from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montréal’s Cinémathèque Québécoise, Cinéma du Musée, Théâtre Plaza, and Bbam! Gallery.

The festival website is now live with the complete lineup...

The 28th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is set to run from from July 18th through August 4th at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas in Montreal, with additional screens and events at Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. Over the last couple of months, the festival announced the first wave and the second wave of titles that will be screening this year, and now the final wave has been unveiled, along with an announcement that genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan will be receiving a career achievement award at the festival!

Here’s the information on the final wave of titles (and Flanagan’s achievement award), courtesy of the Fantasia press release:

2024 Career Achievement Award: Mike Flanagan

For his imaginative and heartfelt horror visions; boundary-breaking achievements in making soulful, character-driven genre television commercially viable without compromises; and the extraordinary work he’s done in popularizing...

US filmmaker Mike Flanagan, behind Netflix series The Haunting Of Hill House, will receive a career award at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival (July 18-August 4) as the final wave of titles are unveiled.

Flanagan is best known for his collaborations with Netflix which also include Midnight Mass, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, The Midnight Club and most recently The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Among his film credits are Oculus, Hush, Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game and upcoming title The Life Of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Previous recipients of the Cheval Noir award include John Carpenter,...

The Fantasia International Film Festival returns very soon with its 28th edition from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. The final wave of programming has been unveiled, adding even more genre premieres to an already packed slate.

The final wave of titles, from the press release:

ABABOUINÉ

ABABOUINÉ takes us back to the 1950s, when the Catholic Church ruled over Quebec with an iron fist, and as a rowdy group of kids goes to war against the church. In his latest masterpiece, André Forcier revisits a dark period of Quebec’s history through an often shocking – yet undeniably and absurdly funny – lens. Starring Rémy Girard, Gaston Lepage (Jesus Of MONTRÉAL), Pascale Montpetit (District 31), Éric Bruneau (An Eye For Beauty), and Mylène Mackay (Nelly), the film brings together an...

What to expect from a genre festival honoring the un-expected? The Fantasia International Film Festival returns to Montréal for its 28th edition from July 18 to August 4 and it promises a killer lineup — with over 125 features and more than 200 shorts in total. The festival’s third and final programming announcement, made exclusive to IndieWire first, includes features from Steven Kostanski, Eugene Kotlyarenko, Scooter McCrae, and more.

André Forcier will show on closing night for the festival with the world premiere of “Ababouiné.” The filmmaker’s latest is a distinctly regional period piece and buzzy potential masterpiece about a group of kids growing up in 1950s Quebec under the harsh eye of the Catholic Church. Fantasia has awarded the film’s director the Prix Denis-Héroux, an accolade “bestowed for exceptional contribution to the development of Quebec genre cinema.”

Oscar-nominated documentarian Pedro Kos makes his narrative feature debut with “In Our Blood,” starring...

American filmmaker Mike Flanagan will be the featured guest at Quebec’s Fantasia International Film Festival, where he will receive the festival’s Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award.

Flanagan has a long history with the Canadian genre festival. He screened his first feature, Absentia, at the festival in 2011. His other feature credits include Oculus (2013), Hush (2016), Gerald’s Game (2017) and Doctor Sleep (2019), as well as the Netflix miniseries events The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023). His next feature is the forthcoming Stephen King adaptation The Life Of Chuck (2024), starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. This year at Fantasia he will present a screening of Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks.

Elsewhere, the festival also announced today it will close with the world premiere of André Forcier’s Ababouiné. The film stars Rémy Girard, Gaston Lepage, Pascale Montpetit, Éric Bruneau, and Mylène Mackay.

Announcing the closing pic,...

Paris-based Playtime has unveiled a strong Cannes film market sales slate, which includes competition titles “About Dry Grasses” and “Homecoming.”

“About Dry Grasses” is by Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who won the Palme d’Or in 2014 for “Winter Sleep.” The film follows Samet, a young art teacher, who is finishing his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in, and hopes that his encounter with fellow teacher Nuray will help him overcome his angst. Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar and Musab Ekici are among the cast.

“Homecoming,” by French director Catherine Corsini who won the 2021 Queer Palm for “The Divide,” follows Khédidja, who minds a wealthy Parisian family’s children for a summer in Corsica. She brings along her own two...

Premiering in Series Mania’s International Panorama section, the Quebecois limited series “Disobey” tackles the docudrama as urgent thriller, finding notes of tension in the lead up to a 1980s ruling the guaranteed abortion rights to women across Canada.

With the visual polish that has become signature for Montreal-based Also Productions, the six-part premium drama follows the real case of Chantale Daigle (Éléonore Loiselle), a 21-year-old woman who pushed against an abusive ex-partner and two court injunctions, eventually leading to a Supreme Court ruling that secured body autonomy for Canadian women. And all that in just a matter of weeks.

“For us, it was important [to hit that urgency], because that’s what really happened,” says Also founder Sophie Lorain. “Chantale went through three steps of jurisdiction and all the way to the Supreme Court in less than two months. While a child grew inside, these gentlemen were chatting along, not making up their...

Billed as the first Indigenous and female-led produced, written, and directed drama about the residential school experience in North America, Marie Clements’ “Bones of Crows” is not afraid of making people uncomfortable.

“We should be squeamish about it,” the helmer tells Variety at Mipcom, addressing the show’s graphic scenes. A concurrent feature film is also in the works.

“I never felt it was too harsh or too violent, but violence towards Indigenous people is a fact. I wanted the audience to understand it, but also understand the release of that, the release of the past.”

Her decades-spanning story, told over the course of five episodes, focuses on Cree matriarch Aline as she survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system and then continues to fight against systemic starvation, racism and sexual abuse.

A CBC Original, “Bones of Crows” is produced by Ayasew Ooskana Pictures Inc, with Marie Clements Media,...

It starts in the 1800s. That’s when the first residential schools were opened across Canada as a means of “beating the Indian” out of Indigenous children. The front-facing narrative was always education, but the thousands of bodies found in unmarked graves and devastating psychological toll endured by survivors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse prove otherwise. And while writer-director Marie Clements never shies away from showing that generational trauma as it pertains to Aline Spears and her extended family, she’s also unafraid to depict the callous sense of superiority that allowed such an abomination of policy to continue for almost 200 years. Look no further than Father Jacobs (Rémy Girard) regaling his guests with the particulars of his scientific experimentations using starvation for compliance.

Much like the television show Pachinko, Clements’ Bones of Crows fluidly travels through time to present Spears’ life in the most impactful way possible. We...

Recent winners of prestigious Critstal award include I Lost My Body and My Life As A Courgette.

The Annecy International Film Festival has unveiled its main feature competition selections for its upcoming hybrid edition which is due to take place from June 14 to 19 in its lakeside home at the foot of the French Alps.

Danish-French filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary Flee and Netflix-acquired adult rom-com You Animal! by Philippine director Avid Liongoren will be among 10 titles competing in the main feature competition for the Cristal award.

The tale of an Afghan man forced to escape his homeland and Mujahadeen as a child,...

Third quarter theatrical release planned.

Corinth Films, the arthouse distributor that has worked with Nadav Lapid and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, has acquired US rights from WaZabi Films to You Will Remember Me.

Corinth plans a third quarter theatrical release for Éric Tessier’s film, which echoes the themes of The Father starring recent best actor Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins.

Based on the play by François Archambault, You Will Remember Me stars Rémy Girard (The Barbarian Invasions) as Edouard, a public figure and retired history teacher who is slowly losing his memory.

Edouard withdraws from the public eye even though he still has a lot to say.

Festival’s Open Air lineup also includes the world premiere of Eric Tessier’s ‘You Will Remember Me’.

Sarajevo Film Festival has secured the world premieres of Niels Mueller’s Small Town Wisconsin and Eric Tessier’s You Will Remember Me, which will both debut online following the festival’s shift to a virtual event.

Both films will be included in the festival’s pared-back Open Air lineup, which will run online this year despite the name of the strand.

Other titles in the section include Pjer Žalica’s Focus, Grandma, which will receive its world premiere as the opening...

Members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television voted to crown Sophie Deraspe’s “Antigone” as best film at the Canadian Screen Awards Thursday, presented virtually by broadcasters CBC and CTV.

The film, a contemporary spin on the Greek tragedy, also won awards for lead female actor for Nahéma Ricci, female actor in a supporting role for Nour Belkhiria, adapted screenplay for Deraspe, and editing for Geoffrey Boulangé and Deraspe.

Variety’s review of the film, which was named best Canadian feature at the Toronto Film Festival, said it “feels refreshingly liberated by the spirit of Sophocles’ original material.” The “impassioned” film was “electrified by a performance of immense self-possession and dignity from revelatory new star Nahéma Ricci,” the critic wrote.

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn won the prizes for directing and original screenplay for “The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open.” The film also took the cinematography award for Norm Li.

Antigone, Sophie Deraspe’s haunting French-language drama that set its adaptation of the Greek tragedy as a tale of a modern-day refugee family in Montreal, won Best Picture and tied François Girard’s The Song of Names with five wins overall Thursday at the Canadian Screen Awards, Canada’s equivalent to the Oscars.

Winners in the Cinematic Arts categories came tonight in a virtual ceremony held by The Canadian Academy, culminating three days of award handouts spanning film, TV, news, sports and documentaries.

Antigone won the Best Canadian Feature Film at last year’s Toronto Film Festival on its way to becoming Canada’s official submission in the 2020 International Feature Film race. Tonight, it also took best actress for star Nahéma Ricci, supporting actress for Nour Belkhiria, adapted screenplay for Deraspe, and Geoffrey Boulangé and Deraspe won for editing.

Song of Names, about an Englishman who searches for his childhood friend,...

Relatively few new limited releases are launching against the likes of Rocketman and Godzilla this weekend. Sony Pictures Classics is rolling out The Fall Of The American Empire, from French-Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand and starring Alexandre Landry, in New York and Los Angeles, and after more than a decade of very limited screenings at a few film festivals, British filmmaker Gerald Fox’s doc Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank is finally getting a regular theatrical release. Indie Rights is heading out with satirical comedy Loners in Los Angeles, and Strand Releasing is launching Cannes 2018 title Yomeddine by Abu Bakr Sawky in New York.

Among other limited release titles headed to theaters this weekend are Mouthpiece from Crucial Things and First Generation Films, and Dogwoof’s For The Birds and Vertical Entertainment’s Rich Boy, Rich Girl.

The Fall Of the American Empire

Director-writer: Denys Arcand

Cast: Alexandre Landry,...

You could be forgiven for confusing the title of Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s latest, the capitalist crime lark “The Fall of the American Empire,” with his 1986 battle-of-the-sexes talkathon, “The Decline of the American Empire.” Though they’re different stories, they’re cut from the same Arcand-ian cloth of sophisticated moral handwringing, with barbed lessons about society’s ills pouring from the mouths of cynical characters.

“Fall” has a broader entertainment canvas, however, with its commentary on avarice, inequality and charity sharing space with wry caper elements straight out of an Ealing Studios comedy. The mix is, for the most part, a welcome one, save one unappealing character, a retrograde love story, and an air that’s almost too blasé for its own good.

The set-up feels a little like something Woody Allen would have given his schlemiel persona in the early ’70s: Pierre-Paul (Alexandre Landry) is a mopey delivery service driver (with a Ph.

Adaptation of Jocelyne Saucier’s 2011 novel.

Paris-based Indie Sales has scooped up world sales on Canadian director Louise Archambault’s upcoming feature And the Birds Rained Down.

Adapted from Jocelyne Saucier’s prize-winning 2011 novel, the film follows three elderly hermits living deep in woods that are periodically ravaged by wildfires.

Their quiet lives are disrupted by the arrival of two women, a luminous octogenarian who has been unjustly institutionalised her whole life and a young photographer charged with interviewing survivors of a historically deadly forest fire.

It is Archambault’s third feature and follows her 2013 drama Gabrielle, about a mentally...

Completing the thematic trilogy that Denys Arcand began in 1986 with “The Decline of the American Empire,” and continued in 2002 with the Oscar-winning “The Barbarian Invasion,” “The Fall of the American Empire” is another of the Quebecois auteur’s playful and damning philosophical excoriations of societal values. Less of a sequel than it is a spiritual successor — there are no returning characters, and Arcand newcomers won’t have any trouble following the action — this thoroughly modern financial caper finds that America’s corruptive influence is still creeping up North, infecting its closest neighbor like a gangrenous rot that needs to be cut off at the knees.

What else is new? But if Arcand’s worldview hasn’t changed, his angle continues to grow more acute. Where “The Decline of the American Empire” focused on social ills, and “The Barbarian Invasions” was preoccupied with ideology, “The Fall of the American Empire” finds...

The Toronto Intl. Film Festival has added Denys Arcand’s crime thriller “The Fall of the American Empire” and 18 other Canadian films to its lineup.

Nine of the films are directed by women and 14 are world premieres.

“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, senior programmer. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy, myth to documentary, and romance to a dystopic vision of our neighbours to the south, this year’s Canadian films come from every region in the country, stretching from east to west and north to south.”

“The Fall of the American Empire” stars Alexandre Landry, Maxim Roy, Yan England, and Rémy Girard and centers Landry’s character discovering two bags of money and facing a moral dilemma. Arcand was inspired to make the film after learning about the 2010 murder of two people in a Montreal boutique.

Sony Classics bought the...

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up U.S. rights to Oscar winner Denys Arcand’s upcoming The Fall of the American Empire. This is a follow-up of sorts to the Canadian helmer’s 1986 Oscar nominee The Decline Of The American Empire. Spc has also acquired all rights in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.

The film explores the predominance of capitalism in a society where all other values seem to have crumbled. It centers on Pierre-Paul, a 36-year-old intellectual with a PhD in philosophy who is forced to work as a deliveryman to earn a decent living. One day, while delivering a parcel, he gets caught in a hold-up gone terribly wrong. With two dead and millions in money bags laying on the ground, Pierre-Paul is confronted with a dilemma: leave empty-handed, or take the money and run?

Alexandre Landry (Gabrielle) stars as Pierre-Paul with newcomer Maripier Morin, Louis Morissette...

Sony Pictures Classics is in exclusive negotiations to buy “The Fall of the American Empire,” Variety has learned.

The Canadian crime thriller was written and directed by Denys Arcand and stars Alexandre Landry, Maxim Roy, Yan England and Rémy Girard. It centers on a man (Landry) who discovers two bags of money and is faced with a moral dilemma. Arcand was inspired to make the film after learning about the 2010 murder of two people in a Montreal boutique.

No deal for the film is in place, so a pact could fall through. However, it appears increasingly likely that the indie distributor will land distribution rights. The film is a thematic cousin to Arcand’s Oscar-nominated “The Decline of the American Empire” and the Oscar-winning “The Barbarian Invasions” (2003).

Sony has a strong track record with art house fare. The company scored a best picture Oscar nod last year for “Call Me by Your Name,...

Seville International will handle international sales on Denys Arcand’s (The Barbarian Invasions) upcoming comedy The Fall Of The American Empire, a follow of sorts to his 1986 Oscar-nominee The Decline Of The American Empire.

The French-language film, which is currently in post-production, was written and directed by Arcand and produced by regular collaborator Denise Robert. In 2004, the duo teamed on The Barbarian Invasions which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and was nommed for Best Original Screenplay.

According to the production, the movie “takes a witty and touching look at the predominance of money in a society where all other values seem to have crumbled.” The protagonist, Pierre-Paul Daoust, 36, an intellectual with a PhD in philosophy is forced to work as a deliveryman to afford a decent living. One day, while delivering a parcel, he gets caught in a hold up gone terribly wrong: two dead and millions...

After a promising initial line-up, the Toronto International Film Festival has delivered more titles with their full Canadian slate. Among the line-up is Xavier Dolan‘s It’s Only the End of the World, Bruce MacDonald‘s new feature Weirdos, Deepa Mehta‘s Anatomy of Violence, as well as Two Lovers and a Bear, starring Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan, which we have the first trailer for today.

We said in our review from Cannes, “Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers and a Bear is a film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Like an indie playlist stuck on constant shuffle, unapologetically reveling in a sort of manic unclassifiable genre. This isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but, for some reason, Nguyen’s scattershot tonal shifts — which hop between a romance on the rocks; a self-serious study of grieving; and a surreal buddy comedy — can prove quite jarring.

While Canadians are days away from hitting the polls to determine the next government, Chloé Robichaud, the filmmaker who broke out with her Cannes Un Certain Regard selected Sarah Prefers to Run is trading the athletic podium for….the political one. Among the new generation of French Canadian female filmmakers, her sophomore effort entitled Pays has its cast in place and is ready to roll. First-timer Nathalie Doummar is joined by Macha Grenon, Yves Jacques, Rémy Girard and Alexandre Landry (Louise Archambault’s Gabrielle) are among those to join the project. To be readied for 2016, the pic is produced by La Boîte à Fanny’s Fanny-Laure Malo (Sarah préfère la course), Item 7’s Pierre Even et Marie-Claude Poulin (Brooklyn) and Morag Loves Company’s Barbara Doran (The Grand Seduction).

Gist: Not imagining herself as a candidate in the federal election, 25 year-old Félixe (Nathalie Doummar) has more difficulty coming to terms after winning her riding.

Every generation believes that the generation to follow it, and possibly the generation to precede it, will, or already has, led to the deterioration of civilization.

In Denys Arcand’s 2003 film The Barbarian Invasions, 9/11 has just recently hit American soil, and the tension between the old and the young has been brought to new light. The incoming class are the “puritanical capitalists”, as the ageing Remy (Remy Girard) explains, himself a self-professed “sensual socialist”. But now in Arcand’s Quebec, Remy is dying and stuck in the bureaucratic, underserved system his generation helped create.

We’d hardly bat an eye for the philandering behavior and lifestyle that got Remy in this place to begin with, but The Barbarian Invasions is not the start of Arcand’s story. The Decline of the American Empire, from 1986, endears us to a young Remy and his equally promiscuous friends and lovers. The movie is...

La légende de Sarila (English title: The Legend of Sarila)

Written by Pierre Tremblay and Roger Harvey

Directed by Nancy Florence Savard

Canada, 2013

For all the diversity and vibrancy one can easily find in Canadian culture, from ‘coast to coast to coast’ as the uniquely Canadian saying goes, the stories of the First Nations are the least shared in film, theater, television and music. Whether the brunt of the responsibility for this equally diverse culture’s lack of presence in traditional media lie with collective disinterest, some unwritten and unspoken stigma or even both, the fact remains that their history and stories remain mostly a mystery to the populace at large. In fairness, there have been exceptions to the unfortunate rule, such as the memorable film Atanarjuat from 2002 and the hit television series North of 60 which lasted several seasons. For the most part, it simply does not seem like...

A middle aged man with a shotgun as the basis for a comedy? That appears to be the case in Quebecois writer-director  Marc-André Lavoi's upcoming Hot Dog.  Éric Salvail, Paul Doucet, Rémy Girard, Daniel Lemire, Pierre-François Legendre, and Edith Cochrane star in the story of Paul, a man who believes he is about to be fired from the production company where he has worked for years and takes up arms to remedy the situation. Paul quickly learns he was not the target of the firing but, well, things are too far along to stop by that point ...The first teaser for the film has arrived on the scene and while it is fairly brief it shows a good deal of promise. Check it below....

Chicago – Damn, last year’s Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film were a dark, dark bunch. I thought “Biutiful,” “Dogtooth” and “In a Better World” had their brutal edges but I hadn’t yet seen the incredibly intense “Incendies,” a historical drama wrapped in a very personal story. The film is a bit more flawed than some of the critical praise had led me to believe but it’s definitely worth a look, especially for renters looking for international drama.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

This highly-acclaimed suspense thriller is essentially the tale of two children discovering incredible secrets about their mother’s past and the true identity of their father. On her death, a woman leaves a letter for her twin children that instructs them to find the father that they believed was dead and the brother that they never knew existed. The male half of this fraternal twin pair ignores...

Rank the week of September 13th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Thor

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #227

Win Percentage: 58%

Times Ranked: 18033

Top-20 Rankings: 90

Directed By: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Chris Hemsworth • Natalie Portman • Anthony Hopkins • Jeremy Renner • Kat Dennings

Genres: Action • Adventure • Based-on-Comics • Comic-Book Superhero Film • Fantasy • Fantasy Adventure

Rank This Movie

Conan O’Brien Can’T Stop

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #5260

Win Percentage: 54%

Times Ranked: 719

Top-20 Rankings: 5

Directed By: Rodman Flender

Starring: Conan O’Brien

Genres: Comedy • Documentary

Rank This Movie

Incendies

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #4296

Win Percentage: 51%

Times Ranked: 947

Top-20 Rankings: 8

Directed By: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Lubna Azabal • Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin • Maxim Gaudette • Rémy Girard • Abdelghafour Elaaziz

Genres: Drama • Foreign Language Film

Rank This Movie

The Tempest

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #7784

Win Percentage: 37%

Times Ranked: 385

Top-20 Rankings: 2

Directed By: Julie Taymor

Starring: Helen Mirren • Djimon Hounsou • Alfred Molina...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

The 10th Victim (1965)

Synopsis: It is the 21st Century, and society’s lust for violence is satisfied by “The Big Hunt,” an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport’s two top assassins (Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th Victim? The 10th Victim is the international cult classic whose wild action and sexy style has influenced a generation of movies, from The Running Man to the Austin Powers series. Remastered from original archival negative materials, this outrageous satire is presented here in its original Italian language with optional English subtitles. — highdefdigest.com

Special Features:

Marcello: A Sweet Life (2006) (102 Mins.) Theatrical Trailer

3 Women: The Criterion Collection (1977)

Synopsis: In a dusty,...

From its arresting opening to its shattering conclusion, the Canadian film Incendies is muscular, emotional film-making of the highest order, self-confident in its delivery yet always respectful of its characters' plight. It starts in slo-mo, to the sound of Radiohead, in what looks like a children's Qu'ran school, in a desert, where we see boys having their heads shaved by soldiers. One of the boys fixes the camera with a chilling stare as hair falls around his feet.

The film then switches to a law firm in Montreal, where a mother's will is being read to her grief-stricken twins, daughter Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and son Simon (Maxim Gaudette). The lawyer Maître Lebel is played by the great Quebecois actor Rémy Girard, from another Canadian family saga, Denys Arcand's Les Invasions Barbares. This, too, is a tale of family, identity and, perhaps, forgiveness as the will sets Jeanne, a student of pure maths,...

Incendies

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Written by Denis Villeneuve and Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne

Canada/France, 2010, 130 mins.

Spoilers are contained herein.

Incendies is the first unqualified masterpiece of 2011 and the film that should have won the Best Foreign Language Film Award at this year’s Academy Awards. Denis Villeneuve’s film is a perfect adaptation of the wonderful Canadian play by Wajdi Mouawad, a plat that might be the best family drama of the past decade. Villeneuve and his co-writer Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne strip away an hour out of the play’s running time while still staying faithful to the play’s structure. What makes the film really work is that it is an intimate family drama set on a global scale that plays out as an engaging and tense thriller. This is the film that Susanne Bier’s film In a Better World tried so hard and failed to be.

The film...

Chicago – One of the most honest aphorisms is “the first casualty of war is truth.” Those obscured facts are often the ones that come back to haunt future generations, and that is exceptionally illustrated in the new film “Incendies.” Piecing together a mother’s wartime activities become the basis for solving a mystery after her death.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

The mystery yields a number of shocking revelations, but none more shocking than framing a reserved Jordanian immigrant, leading a normal life in Canada, as a soldier in a wartime frenzy that results in her being a political prisoner of war. Incendies allows for the events of the past to unfold through her twin children, destined to complete her journey and allow her to rest in peace.

The film begins with the reading of a will. Twin siblings Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) get odd instructions rather that the normal recitation of estate.

Director: Denis Villenueve Writers: Denis Villenueve, Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne, Wajdi Mouawad Cinematographer: André Turpin Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard Studio/Running Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 130 min. One of the questions at the heart of Incendies is whether the search is as important as what’s found at the end. The taut drama follows a pair of twins trying to fulfill a request from their mother’s will: to find their lost brother and unknown father and hand them a pair of mysterious letters. It soon turns out that the pair knew little of their mother’s life, so their...

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek

(from the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival)

Directed/Written by: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette and Rémy Girard

“Incendies” wastes no time in introducing us to its perfect premise: A less-than-perfect mother reveals to her twins, via last will and testament, that they have a brother and a father, and that they’re to find them to fulfill a promise that she never kept during her lifetime. Based on the play by Lebanese-born, Canadian-bred, Parisian-trained Wajdi Mouawad, “Incendies” tracks the ensuing journey to unearth the truth behind a family’s past in order to reveal who they truly are today.

Directed by Cannes’ favorite Canadian filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve (“August 32nd on Earth,” “Maelstrom,” “Polytechnique”), “Incendies” peels layers back to strike at the core of the notion of a civilization marked by one or other type of civil war, a concept that forces individuals related by place,...

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek

(from the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival)

Directed/Written by: Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette and Rémy Girard

“Incendies” wastes no time in introducing us to its perfect premise: A less-than-perfect mother reveals to her twins, via last will and testament, that they have a brother and a father, and that they’re to find them to fulfill a promise that she never kept during her lifetime. Based on the play by Lebanese-born, Canadian-bred, Parisian-trained Wajdi Mouawad, “Incendies” tracks the ensuing journey to unearth the truth behind a family’s past in order to reveal who they truly are today.

Directed by Cannes’ favorite Canadian filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve (“August 32nd on Earth,” “Maelstrom,” “Polytechnique”), “Incendies” peels layers back to strike at the core of the notion of a civilization marked by one or other type of civil war, a concept that forces individuals related by place,...

Director: Denis Villeneuve Writers: Denis Villeneuve, Wajdi Mouawad Starring: Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Lubna Azabal, Maxim Gaudette After their mother Nawal’s (Lubna Azabal) death, twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) are faced with a puzzle that they must solve in order to fulfill their mother's last will and testament. According to their mother's most recent employer (Rémy Girard) -- a notary who was designated as the will's executor -- two letters must be delivered, one to their father and one to their brother. This is a puzzle because Jeanne and Simon assumed that their father was long dead and this is the first time that they have ever heard about the existence of any siblings. Simon wants nothing at all to do with their lunatic mother's crazy mind games, so it is Jeanne (quite purposefully a mathematician, therefore a staunch believer in absolute answers) who embarks upon the journey...

The message running throughout Incendies is clear enough. It’s so clear, in fact, that those watching are in danger of injury, due to intense bludgeoning of said subject matter. The film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, delves into the moral fiber and traumatic tree rings of war more than most films have or most likely ever will, but without one clear vantage point or emotional anchor.

Olivier Assayas‘ Carlos, which similarly tackles military revolt and the collateral damage that comes with it, is focused and dense, never diverting from its narcissistic, passionate title character. Villeneuve’s central character, Nawal (Lubna Azabal), is a cipher. A survivor who does just that and not much more. She survives. She survives the bombing of her village, a bus ride that ends riddled in bullets, a never-ending stint in prison complete with every kind of torture and so much more, including separation from her first-born child.

CBC, a Canadian TV network, announced today that it will renew its half-hour spy comedy InSecurity for a second season. For the moment, tno premiere date has been announced for the second season.

The show is centred on Alex Cranston (Natalie Lisinska), the team leader of a group of spies. Together, they work for a fictitious Canadian federal organization called the National Intelligence Security Agency (Nisa). While these spies always screw up on a mission, they always find a way to succeed at the end of the day.

The show also stars Richard Yearwood, Grace Lynn Kung, Matthew MacFadzean, William deVry and Rémy Girard.

The web site iTunes Movie Trailers announced that the Canadian film Incendies, which is nominated for the Oscar of Best film in a foreign language, will be released in Los Angeles and New York on April 22.

For the moment, nothing indicates that the latest film from director Denis Villeneuve will get a rollout in other major American cities.

The film is about a mother's last wish which sends Jeanne and Simon, two twins living in Canada, on a journey to the Middle East in search of their tangled roots.

The film stars Lubna Azabal, Maxim Gaudette, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Rémy Girard and Abdelghafour Elaaziz.

See the trailer for Incendies, starring Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette. In theaters April 1, 2011, the drama is directed and written by Denis Villeneuve, based on the play by Wajdi Mouawad. Incendies is a deeply moving story that brings the extremism and violence of today’s world to a starkly personal level, delivering a powerful and poetic testament to the uncanny power of the will to survive. See the Incendies trailer below. When notary Lebel (Rémy Girard) sits down with Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) to read them their mother Nawal’s will (Lubna Azabal), the twins are stunned to receive a pair of envelopes – one for the father they thought was dead and another for a brother they didn’t know existed...

See the trailer for Incendies, starring Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette. In theaters April 1, 2011, the drama is directed and written by Denis Villeneuve, based on the play by Wajdi Mouawad. Incendies is a deeply moving story that brings the extremism and violence of today’s world to a starkly personal level, delivering a powerful and poetic testament to the uncanny power of the will to survive. See the Incendies trailer below. When notary Lebel (Rémy Girard) sits down with Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) to read them their mother Nawal’s will (Lubna Azabal), the twins are stunned to receive a pair of envelopes – one for the father they thought was dead and another for a brother they didn’t know existed...

The South by Southwest Film Festival announced its feature film line-up Wednesday, piling heaps of cinematic goodness on an already stellar program that includes Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, Duncan Jones’ Source Code, Ti West’s The Innkeepers, Conan O’Brien’s tour documentary, and the latest Simon Pegg-Nick Frost comedy, Paul, with Seth Rogen.

Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) returns to the festival with her latest film, Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfried, after the writer-director spoke on a screenwriting panel in 2009.

Plus a few favorites from the Sundance Film Festival last month, like Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and Max Winkler’s Ceremony.

I’m extremely excited, even if I’m already having flashbacks to intense sleep deprivation. Like the last two years, I’ll be on the ground covering as much of the festival as I can within the packed 9 days of screenings,...

Readers of Sound On Sight can be sure that we will indeed be covering the SXSW Film Festival once again. As previously reported, Duncan Jones’ latest film Source Code is opening the festival and there will also be premieres for the documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, Greg Mottola’s Paul, and Jodie Foster’s The Beaver. Now the full line-up has been announced it is incredible.

Hit the jump to check out the line-up, and be sure to visit our site during the event.

The 2011 SXSW Film Festival runs from March 11 – 19th in Austin, Texas.

SXSW Film Announces 2011 Features Lineup

Austin, Texas – February 2, 2011 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 11 – 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers.

The South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival announced this year's features lineup. The festival takes place March 11-19 in Austin, Texas.

There are a total of 130 features screening this year including 60 world premieres, 12 North American premieres and 16 U.S. premieres! This year the a total of 1,792 feature-length films were submitted, which is the most ever.

There are going to be some amazing films shown this yea. Opening night kicks off with Duncan Jones' Source Code (Moon). The fest rolls on with Jodie Foster‘s The Beaver, Greg Mottola‘s Paul, Sundance Grand Prize doc winner How to Die in Oregon, Errol Morris‘ Tabloid, Victoria Mahoney‘s Yelling to the Sky, Azazel Jacob‘s Terri. There will also be a special screening of Catherine Hardwicke‘s Red Riding Hood.

The Midnight and SXFantastic sections will be announced with the shorts program next week.

See the complete lineup below via...

The South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) just announced their entire 2011 feature film lineup, and there’s isn’t a lot of note, with regards to this blog’s focus.

Titles you should be aware of – all of which we’ve previously profiled on Shadow And Act – include, Victoria Mahoney’s feature film debut, Yelling To The Sky (which will actually make its world debut at the Berlin Film Festival later this month); plus Blacktino, the first feature film from writer/director Aaron Burns, a self-described “blacktino nerd from Austin, Texas,” who got his start at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios doing visual effects; Benda Bilili, a documentary about a band of homeless, disabled Congolese; and last, but not least, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, a documentary about the black man that happens to be the man behind the puppet (which also played at Sundance).

There might be...

The South by Southwest Film Festival has announced their features lineup for the 2011’s Festival, which will take place March 11th to the 19th in Austin Texas. Read the full press release after the jump. SXSW Film Announces 2011 Features Lineup Austin, Texas – February 2, 2011 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year’s Festival, March 11 – 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers. The Midnighters and SXFantastic feature sections, along with the short film program, will be announced next week. “This is the most exciting moment for us. After a fantastic festival of discovery in 2010, we can finally unveil the line up for this year’s event,” says Film Conference and Festival Producer Janet Pierson. “SXSW prides itself on taking chances, sifting for...

Incendies premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals to extremely positive reviews [1], but with such a limited audience, it hasn't had a chance for much buzz to spread. Of course, its recent nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars should change all that. Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Maelstrom), this Canadian film tells the story of two twins who, upon hearing their mother's last wishes, journey to the Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play 'Scorched', the movie is described as a "powerful and moving tale of two young adults’ voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love". It was also featured on Peter's list of Best Movies of 2010 That You Probably Haven’t Heard Of [2]. Watch the trailer after the break. The movie looks interesting, but as tends to be the case for many indie...

I’ve heard nothing but raves for Denis Villeneuve‘s Oscar-nominated foreign drama Incendies. While I missed it at both Toronto and Sundance, it will finally get a limited theatrical release this spring. The drama stars Remy Girard, Melissa Desormeaux Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, and Lubna Azabal. Out of the Foreign Oscar nominations, Dogtooth has been the best I’ve seen thus far. Last year I thought there was no way anything could beat A Prophet, but then I saw The Secret In Their Eyes a few months later and, well…you know what happened. Could we have another 2010 on our hands? Take a look, Apple has our first domestic trailer, which can see below.

Synopsis: When notary Lebel (Remy Girard) sits down with Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Melissa Desormeaux Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) to read them their mother Nawal’s will (Lubna Azabal), the twins are stunned to receive a pair...