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In recent years, it seems like Capcom can't do any wrong, and after the beta test for Monster Hunter Wilds, it looks like the streak of great games will continue. Yes, there were some performance issues in the beta, which should be expected for a test, but for the most part, Mh Wilds is shaping up to be another worthy successor in the storied series. With the sheer number of players that tried the beta and the popularity of the Monster Hunter franchise since World, Wilds could be the biggest game in the franchise yet.

Although it is yet another one of Capcom's long-running franchises, Monster Hunter didn't find mainstream recognition as early as other games like Street Fighter or Resident Evil. It was only after Monster Hunter World that the series began to become wildly popular, with Mh Rise helping in continuing that popularity, yet these newer titles show...

Swedish director Ruben Östlund, who won Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness,” was among the guests at the German Films and Medienboard Reception on May 18 in the garden of the Mondrian Hotel in Cannes.

Östlund, who is in the Riviera resort to promote his latest production, “The Entertainment System Is Down,” was accompanied by Philippe Bober of Coproduction Office, one of the film’s producers, and Erik Hemmendorf of Plattform Produktion, Östlund’s Swedish producer. (They are pictured above.)

German Films, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, was represented at the event by managing director Simone Baumann, and Medienboard, which is a film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, was represented by its CEO Kirsten Niehuus. Variety was the media partner for the reception.

Among the other guests attending were Karim Aïnouz, director of “Motel Destino,” which plays in this year’s Competition section at Cannes.

Seven years after the premiere of A Moment in the Reeds, Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä has followed up with the Sundance World Dramatic Competition Sebastian. For his second film, Mikko Mäkelä plunges the viewer into the life of a novelist who, first as research for his own novel and then for the thrills the double life grants him, enters the world of sex work. Editor Arttu Salmi, whose previous work includes the TIFF 2023 premiere The End We Start From and both the New Man and Degeneration installments of Dau, discusses the unique circumstances of editing Sebastian on two Avids and how he found the film in the […]

The post “I Was Keen to Challenge Myself with Film Language That I Hadn’t Tried”: Editor Arttu Salmi on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Seven years after the premiere of A Moment in the Reeds, Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä has followed up with the Sundance World Dramatic Competition Sebastian. For his second film, Mikko Mäkelä plunges the viewer into the life of a novelist who, first as research for his own novel and then for the thrills the double life grants him, enters the world of sex work. Editor Arttu Salmi, whose previous work includes the TIFF 2023 premiere The End We Start From and both the New Man and Degeneration installments of Dau, discusses the unique circumstances of editing Sebastian on two Avids and how he found the film in the […]

The post “I Was Keen to Challenge Myself with Film Language That I Hadn’t Tried”: Editor Arttu Salmi on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Restored versions of Chinese language cinema classics Wong Kar-wai’s “Days of Being Wild” (1990) and Jia Zhangke’s first full-length feature “Pickpocket” (“Xiao Wu”) 1998) will lead the inaugural program of Hong Kong’s M+ Cinema, which will be opened to the public on June 8.

The opening program also features the Hong Kong premiere of one of the films from Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy’s epic project series “Dau,” making the M+ Museum notable for not canceling Russian culture following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The cinema, comprising three theaters with seating capacity of 180, 60, and 40 seats, is a core facility of the Moving Image Centre at M+, the visual culture museum that opened in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District in November last year. Moving images, including artist-made audio-visual works, artist films, and traditional feature films, are considered among one of the three key disciplines of the mega institution...

Pablo Larrain’s ‘Spencer’ has been nominated for best film.

Andreas Kleinert’s Dear Thomas has emerged as the front runner at this year’s German Film Awards, known as the Lolas, with 12 nominations.

The black-and-white biopic of East German poet, dramatist and filmmaker Thomas Brasch is nominated in the best feature film category, as well as for direction, screenplay, lead actor, cinematography and production design.

Andreas Dresen’s Berlinale competition title Rabiye Kurnaz Vs. George W. Bush is not far behind Dear Thomas with 10 nominations, the same number his Gundermann attracted in 2019.

Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom,...

It is just the latest film to be refused an exhibition license by the Ministry of Culture.

The Russian government has banned the release of Radu Jude’s Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn in the country due to its “promotion of pornography”.

Distributor Capella Film has been refused an exhibition license for the film by the Ministry of Culture despite its inclusion in full at the state-backed Moscow International Film Festival (Miff) in April.

“We are permitted to show the film without a censorship permit,” festival programme director Kirill Razlogov told Screen at the time.

It...

A year like no other in film history, 2020 has seen numerous releases and productions delayed, along with worlds of exhibition and distribution needing to rethink their business models. As we near the halfway mark of this tumultuous year, the Oscars and other awards ceremonies have decided to move the marker of eligibility windows to allow more films to be considered but as we look back at the first six months and round up our favorite titles thus far, there’s already plenty of worthwhile films to consider.

While the end of this year will bring personal favorites from all of our writers, think of the below 20 entries (and honorable mentions) as a comprehensive rundown of what should be seen before heading into the back half of the year. As a note, this feature is based solely on U.S. theatrical and digital releases from 2020, with the majority widely available, as noted.

From the people that brought you Pandemic Parade chapters 1-8, comes yet another thrilling episode featuring Jesse V. Johnson, Casper Kelly, Fred Dekker, Don Coscarelli, Daniel Noah, Elijah Wood and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wondrous Story of Birth a.k.a. The Birth of Triplets (1950)

Contagion (2011)

The Omega Man (1971)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Innerspace (1987)

The Howling (1981)

The Invisible Man (2020)

The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Where Eagles Dare (1969)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Goldfinger (1964)

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Dr. No (1962)

From Russia With Love (1963)

Bellman and True (1987)

Brimstone and Treacle (1982)

Richard III (1995)

Titanic (1997)

Catch 22 (1970)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

The Graduate (1967)

1941 (1979)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Jaws (1975)

The Fortune (1975)

Carnal Knowledge (1970)

Manhattan...

Russian film promotion body Roskino has unveiled the program for its digital Key Buyers Event, a virtual content market that will present over 300 projects from more than 120 leading Russian companies to international buyers.

Presented with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Moscow city government, the digital market will run from June 8-15. The program features a host of live presentations, panel discussions, and cultural events, along with pitching sessions for dozens of film, TV and animation projects looking for international co-production partners.

Buyers and producers from more than 40 countries are slated to take part, including Rtl Group, AMC Networks, Cgv Mars, Wild Bunch, Beta Film, and Chinese streaming service iQIYI.

“Such a national virtual market is unprecedented, and it is exciting to be the pioneers,” says Roskino CEO Evgenia Markova. “During these challenging times, we are adapting to champion our filmmakers to give them every opportunity to...

Dau, the 700-hour behemoth of a cinema project, directed by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel and Ilya Permyakov, caused quite a stir when two of its films premiered this year at Berlinale. The six-hour Dau. Degeneration and the four-hour Dau. Natasha both featured an extensive cast of mostly non-professional yet intensely watchable, often heartbreakingly convincing actors. Most of the project had been shot on the 42,000-square-feet set in Ukraine, which created an isolated, immersive atmosphere. With panache, some debauchery and plenty chugged vodka, the films inducted viewers into the universe of an isolated, top-secret Soviet research institute, where science and reason succumb to ruthless might and political machinations.In contrast to the sprawling Degeneration, and in line with the more intimate Natasha, the latest feature of the project to be released, Dau. Nora Mother, is modest. At just under one hour and thirty minutes, it feels slight, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This monumental drama, shot in a replica of Moscow’s real-life Institute of Physical Problems, is an arthouse freakout

Earlier this year at the Berlin film festival, I saw the brutal and bizarre Dau. Natasha. It is one of 14 feature films that have come out of the extraordinary multimedia Dau project devised by Russian film-maker Ilya Khrzhanovsky, who over the past decade has built a detailed full-scale replica of the Moscow building housing the real-life Institute of Physical Problems, an experimental psychology unit presided over in the 60s by the free-thinking Soviet scientist Lev Landau (nicknamed “Dau”), and filled it with actors improvising the imagined lives of its scientist researchers on a 24/7 basis. He recorded the results in films, video art and photo collections.

Related: Inside Dau, the 'Stalinist Truman Show': 'I had absolute freedom – until the Kgb grabbed me'...

On paper, “Dau. Natasha” is the first film in a franchise that gives the Marvel Cinematic Universe a run for its money. But calling the “Dau” film series a franchise is a bastardization of Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s intent as genuinely as it is a misnomer for its cultural identity. No one will flock to midnight screenings for the next chapter of “Dau,” and that’s not because of the circumstances.

Continue reading ‘Dau. Natasha’: Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dream Of Grandeur; A Hulking Multimedia Art Installation & Real Life ‘Synecdoche, New York’ [Review] at The Playlist.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

45 Years (Andrew Haigh)

Andrew Haigh’s third feature as a director, 45 Years, is an excellent companion piece to its 2011 predecessor, Weekend. The latter examined the inception of a potential relationship between two men over the course of a weekend, whereas its successor considers the opposite extreme. Again sticking to a tight timeframe, the film chronicles the six days leading up to a couple’s 45th wedding anniversary. Though highly accomplished, Weekend nevertheless suffered from a tendency towards commenting on itself as a gay issues film, which at times overrode the otherwise compelling realism. Despite treating material arguably even more underrepresented in cinema – senior relationships...

One of the most ambitious art projects known to humankind was finally unveiled to the world last year. Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau explores the life of Nobel Prize-winning Soviet scientist Lev Landau, but it’s from the standard biopic. With over 700 hours of footage captured with 35mm cameras, the project spanned three years with a massive cast, all living in a working town. Early last year in Paris, Dau was made public to the world as part of an exhibit, which included a selection of 12 films as well as other experiences meant to immerse the attendee in this totalitarian world.

A year later, at this year’s Berlinale Film Festival, the first theatrical releases were unveiled, Dau. Natasha and Dau. Degeneration, which our writer Rory O. Connor found to be as astonishing as they were shocking. Now, in a surprise release, they have been made available online, followed by what...

Awards: Golden Bear for Mohammad Rasoulof's There Is No EvilTOP Picksdaniel KASMAN1. The Salt of Tears (Philippe Garrel)2. Days (Tsai Ming-liang)3. Corporate Accountability (Jonathan Perel)4. Voices in the Wind (Nobuhiro Suwa)5. Undine (Christian Petzold)6. Generations (Lynne Siefert)7. Blue Eyes and Colorful My Dress (Polina Gumiela)8. Siberia (Abel Ferrara)9. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sang-soo)10. Chronicle of Space (Akshay Indikar)Ela BITTENCOURT1. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)2. Letter to a Friend (Emily Jacir)3. Days (Tsai Ming-liang)4. Malmkrog (Cristi Puiu)5. Dau6. The Trouble with Being Born (Sandra Wollner)7. Kill It and Leave This Town (Mateusz Wilczyński)8. Orphea9. The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)10. Tango of the Widower and Its Distorning MirrorCoveragedaniel KASMANFirst Encounters of the 70th YearPhilippe Garrel's Portrait of the Cad as a Young ManChristian Petzold's Fairy Tale BerlinHong Sang-soo's Options for WomanhoodPolitical LandscapesChild's PlayELA BITTENCOURTHighlights from Forum and Forum ExpandedDreaming the Impossible CinemaDau and the...

When Dau. Natasha premiered at the Berlinale less than a moon cycle ago it was unprecedented and an entirely unique film. We now have precedent for the Dau movies and they are the Dau movies themselves. Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s constructed totalitarian nightmare is justifiably taking fire at the moment (over allegations regarding consent and the mistreatment of actors) but if Degeneration is to be the last Dau feature to see the light of day it will be a fitting coda. Yes, Natasha was a startling introduction–as provocative as it was fascinating–but Degeneration is something else: the first Dau epic novel and, perhaps, the first masterpiece of the series.

All in all, the two are scarcely comparable. Natasha had a running time of 146 minutes and took place over the course of a few days in the early ‘50s, with only a spattering of events and characters seen on screen.

Early as it may be to provide a cogent assessment of the 70th Berlinale, the first edition under the new leadership of executive director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian, fresh finds and new ideas seemed to herald much-welcomed changes to the festival's curatorial vision. Sure, the official competition—historically a mix bag often stashed with one too many crowd-pleasers under former Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick—may not have featured “many more truly great and prize-worthy contributions” than in the past, as noted by Andreas Kilb at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But in his thorough analysis of Chatrian’s first mandate, over at IndieWire Eric Kohn contends that the fest’s official lineup has always had to wrestle with a difficult calendar slot:Hamstrung by its placement after Sundance and before Cannes, [Berlin] must compete with both the most prominent festival in the U.S. and the most revered one in the world.

The 70th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival is now in the books. The jury, featuring Jeremy Irons, Bérénice Bejo, Bettina Brokemper, Annemarie Jacir, Kenneth Lonergan, Luca Marinelli, and Kleber Mendonça Filho, shared their award winners–and now here’s a look at what we admired the most during the festival.

Featuring a fair bit of cross-over, check out our favorites below and return for more coverage (including reviews and interviews). Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter for updates as these films get distribution and release dates.

Dau. Natasha

It is no use of hyperbole to suggest that Dau. Natasha already looks like one of the most provocative art films ever made. The first strictly theatrical feature to be released from Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s gargantuan, unprecedented Dau project (12 other films were shown at an immersive exhibition in Paris last year), it offers the viewer a kind of...

Above: Dau. DegenerationThere comes a scene in Dau. Degeneration, the smorgasbord of a film co- directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky and Ilya Permyakov, when a pig is painted with anti-semitic and anti-democratic slogans, dragged out of a pigsty to a boarding house, where residents (mostly members of scientific community) are having dinner, and then savagely slaughtered and hacked to bits before them, by a ruthless Kgb-agent-in-training, as blood and guts gush out. The long scene’s visceral shock says much about Dau as a project—an endurance test of sorts, which the Dau directors and cast undertook by secluding themselves for three years to film what, by now, reportedly amounts to 700 hours of footage. The saga is dedicated to the malice of Soviet Russia, but, as one of the actors present at the Berlin Film Festival where the film premiered put it, truly to how Russia never digested its past,...

One of this year’s Berlinale selections has already sparked controversy as the festival comes to a close this weekend. “Dau. Natasha,” the sophomore feature from Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, is a harrowing film experiment in which the director built a vast 42,000-square-foot set in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and cast some 352,000 people to live 24 hours a day in a meticulous rendering of a Soviet science institute. Ordinary people are asked to live in full character and hold normal jobs — even if that means facing repercussions from authorities if they wander from their routine. The movie, which won a cinematography prize out of the Berlinale on Saturday, culminates in a queasy scene of sexual assault that has led a group of Russian journalists to question the ethics of including the drama at all among the competition titles. In tandem, the director is tangling in his own share of controversy over the ambitious film.

Eliza Hittman’s ’Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ wins Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

Mohammad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil has become the latest film from Iran to win the Berlinale’s top honour, the Golden Bear, following Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation in 2012 and Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Tehran in 2015.

Rasoulof was not able to attend this year’s festival because he is banned from leaving Iran following his arrest last year. The film’s producers Farzad Pak and Kaveh Farnam, and the director’s daughter Baran Rasoulof (an actress who lives in Hamburg) collected the award on his...

“Sheytan vojud nadarad” (“There Is No Evil”) has won the Golden Bear Award at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlin jury announced at a ceremony on Saturday.

The film by director Mohammad Rasoulof consists of four different stories about military men in Iran who are asked to perform executions. It won in a competition lineup that consisted of 18 movies and also included Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow,” Sally Potter’s “‘The Roads Not Taken,” Philippe Garrel’s “The Salt of Tears,” Abel Ferrara’s “Siberia” and Christian Petzold’s “Undine.”

Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” the story of two teenage girls traveling from Pennsylvania to New York City for an abortion, won the Grand Jury Prize, the festival’s second-place award.

Also Read: 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' Director Explains Why Her Stars Auditioned in a Bathroom (Video)

Acting awards went to Elio Germano for “Volevo nascondermi” (“Hidden Away...

This year’s Berlin International Film Festival brought a lot of anticipation. The first edition assembled by artistic director Carlo Chatrian and executive director Mariette Rissenbeek required the team to push back on several years of backlash to lackluster programming while competing with a busy festival circuit.

The Berlinale isn’t Cannes or Sundance, but it turns out it didn’t need to chase either mold: In its 70th year, Berlin provided a range of international offerings large and small, more than enough to make the selection worth following across the 10-day event. Here are 10 highlights.

“The American Sector” (Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez)

Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez’s “The American Sector” may not have time to visit every section of the Berlin Wall that’s been imported to the country (the film runs a breezy 65 minutes without credits), but this light and thoughtful documentary road trip still manages...

A group of Russian journalists at the Berlinale have published an open letter to festival leadership, questioning their selection of controversial Russian film “Dau. Natasha” during a period “marked by the struggle against the culture of violence and abuse in the film industry.”

The post, published Saturday on Russian feminist film website Kkbbd.com and signed by five accredited journalists, takes aim at the alleged violence, both psychological and physical, towards cast members in the making of the Russian epic, which was largely shot on a sprawling Ukrainian set over several years, with cast and crew completely immersed throughout the period.

Directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky and Jekaterina Oertel, “Dau. Natasha” is one instalment of a planned series of films culled from more than 700 hours of footage. A second film, “Dau. Degeneration,” premiered out of competition in the Berlinale Special selection Friday.

Addressed to Berlinale creative director Carlo Chatrian and executive director Mariette Rissenbeek,...

It is no use of hyperbole to suggest that Dau. Natasha already looks like one of the most provocative art films ever made. The first strictly theatrical feature to be released from Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s gargantuan, unprecedented Dau project (12 other films were shown at an immersive exhibition in Paris last year), it offers the viewer a kind of Westworld-style trip into a fully realized Stalinist world; a frighteningly believable place where seemingly no act is deemed unfit for the screen. Further installments are alleged to be on their way to Cannes and Venice. May God help us all.

Has a production ever been so shrouded in mystery? Substantial security and non-disclosure agreements have, for the most part, succeeded in keeping a lid on Khrzhanovsky’s universe: a living, working Soviet town (with running water and electricity) that has apparently been in operation for years; populated with hundreds of cast members who live,...

‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ still leads.

Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken scored low on Screen’s Berlin 2020 Competition jury grid, as controversial Russian title Dau. Natasha split opinion for a joint-third place spot.

Qurbani’s adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel scored three ones (poor) from Segnocinema’s Paolo Bertolin, Meduza’s Anton Dolin, and The Morning Star’s Rita Di Santo, as well as three twos (average), with only one positive score of three (good) from Dagens Nyheter’s Helena Lindblad. This brought it an average of 1.7, the fourth-lowest score on the grid.

If you consider running-time alone, Russian content fills a considerable chunk of space in the official sections of the 2020 Berlinale.

This is primarily because of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s mind-boggling large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system, the “Dau” project, which comprises 14 features — two are unspooling at Berlin, accounting for more than eight hours of screen time. “Dau. Natasha,” clocking in at two hours and 19 minutes, premieres in competition.

Described by the Dau website as “a tale of violence that is as radical as it is provocative,” it follows two waitresses in a top-secret Soviet scientific institute who strike up a cautious friendship when one is seduced by a foreign visitor, until the ministry of state security intervenes.

Meanwhile, the Berlinale Special title “Dau. Degeneratsia” has a running time of just over six hours. The story unfolds at the same institute shown in “Natasha,” where scientific and occult experiments aimed at...

“Dau. Natasha” has no credits to explain the wild concept behind its existence, but context is everything. The sophomore feature from Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy follows his well-received 2004 debut “4,” but this is the rare case of an extensive delay that makes complete sense. The movie takes the form of a sexually explicit drama with a jarring Orwellian turn in its final act, and ends with a harrowing sexual assault, but the circumstances behind the scenes deepen the queasy intrigue that has defined the life of this project for more than a dozen years.

Khrzhanovskiy initially set out to make a traditional biopic of Soviet-era physicist Lev Landau, but the production later transformed into an epic installation piece, and eventually the most ambitious filmmaking experiment in history. The filmmaker built a sprawling 42,000-square-foot set in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and cast some 352,000 people to live 24 hours a day in a meticulous recreation of a Soviet science institute.

“Dau. Natasha,” the Russian art project-turned-movie franchise competing at the Berlinale, has triggered headlines in the local and international press over the years due to its epic scale, scenes of graphic violence and anecdotes of an allegedly oppressive work environment for women.

Hours before the film’s premiere at a presser on Wednesday, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, who co-directed “Dau. Natasha” with Jekaterina Oertel, addressed several questions from journalists about claims of harassment and a difficult on-set environment for women, saying that such accusations were “a bit fashionable” and a byproduct of the immersive nature of the film.

“I think what you’re referring to didn’t happen. It’s a rather odd project, so people go digging around, ‘Surely someone raped someone,’” he said. “This project was running for a long time and we worked with a lot of different people, and there were various conflict situations — but they all had...

‘The Woman Who Ran’, ‘Bad Tales’ score moderately.

Eliza Hittman’s Us drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always has become the runaway leader on Screen’s Berlin 2020 Competition jury grid.

The film achieved 3.4 - 0.3 ahead of the previous leader, Christian Petzold’s Undine.

This is also significantly ahead of the 3.0 for Synonyms and A Tale Of Three Sisters, the tied winners for 2019; and tops the 3.3 of 2018 winner Isle Of Dogs.

Segnocinema’s Paolo Bertolin, Meduza’s Anton Dolin and The Morning Star’s Rita Di Santo each gave it a top-score four (excellent), with the remaining three critics to have scored...

Coproduction Office reveals first deals on ’Dau. Natasha’.

Four more Dau features are in post-production and ready to be unveiled at film festivals later this year and next, revealed Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, the co-director of Dau. Natasha, which is making its world premiere at the Berlinale tonight (February 26).

Dau. Natasha is the first standalone feature to emerge from the controversial multi-million dollar Dau immersive art project and is co-directed by Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel. Oertel was originally the head of makeup and hair design on the Dau project and took on an editing and co-direction role in post-production.

The...

Coproduction Office reveals first deals on ’Dau.Natasha’.

Four more Dau features are in post-production and ready to be unveiled at film festivals later this year and next, revealed Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, the co-director of Dau. Natasha, which is making its world premiere at the Berlinale tonight (February 26).

Dau. Natasha is the first standalone feature to emerge from the controversial multi-million dollar Dau immersive art project and is co-directed by Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel. Oertel was originally the head of make up and hair design on the Dau project and took on an editing and co-direction role in post production.

One project now nearing completing is Roman Vasyanov’s debut feature as a director, The Dorm.

Prolific Russian producer and Metrafilms boss Artem Vasilyev has revealed new details on his booming feature film slate.

One Vasilyev project now nearing completing is Roman Vasyanov’s debut feature as a director, The Dorm (previously known as Tenerife), based on Alexei Ivanov’s novel, Dorm To Blood.

Vasyanov, a top Hollywood cinematographer with credits ranging from Fury and Suicide Squad to Triple Frontier, returned to Russia to direct the film. Sony will handle the Russian release which is set for later this autumn.

Variety’s “10 Europeans to Watch” were feted Saturday night at a party held by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg at Berlin’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Co-hosting the evening were Kirsten Niehuus and Helge Jürgens, managing directors of Medienboard, the regional film, TV and digital-media funding body.

Pictured above are U.K. filmmaker and rapper Andrew Onwubolu, known by his alias Rapman, Irish producer Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, Italian director Carlo Sironi (“Sole”), German director Leonie Krippendorff (“Cocoon”), Estonian director Tanel Toom, Germany-based Kosovan director Visar Morina (“Exile”), and Hungarian actor Abigél Szõke (“Those Who Remained”).

Before welcoming to the stage some of Europe’s most promising stars of tomorrow, Variety executive VP of content Steven Gaydos noted: “Variety is celebrating our 115th year covering international entertainment, before people were watching movies.”

He also shared the story of local producer Sol Bondy, who met Russian producers Ilya Stewart and Murad Osmann at Variety’s “10 Producers to...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbel Ferrara's SiberiaThe Berlin Film Festival Competition lineup has finally been unveiled, revealing a roster of heavy hitters that includes Ilya Khrzhanovsky's controversial installation project Dau, Abel Ferrara's long-delayed Siberia, Hong Sang-soo's latest The Woman Who Ran, and the anticipated return of Christian Petzold, Rithy Panh, Tsai Ming-liang, Sally Potter, and Philippe Garrel. Actor, writer, and director Terry Jones, best known for his involvement in the Monty Python comedy group and for directing the 1983 Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, has died. Recommended VIEWINGGrasshopper Films has released a trailer for Pedro Costa's bold Vitalina Varela, about a woman who arrives in Lisbon from Cape Verde to attend her estranged husband's funeral. Upon its premiere at 2019's Locarno Film Festival, editor Daniel Kasman described it as "a film of fierce determination and paramount resonance.

What to make of Carlo Chatrian’s first selection?

Berlin Film Festival has announced its Competition lineup for the 70th edition, which runs from February 20 - March 1.

Screen has picked out six key talking points to arise from the selection.

Berlin Film Festival unveils 2020 Competition line-up It looks pretty familiar

Carlo Chatrian’s first main competition selection does not look wildly different from the Dieter Kosslick years at first glance. Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel’s Dau, Natasha, Burham Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern’s Delete Forever and Philippe Garrel’s The Salt Of Tears are...

18-strong Competition strand includes films by Sally Potter, Hong Sangsoo, Tsai Ming-Liang, Christian Petzold, Rithy Panh and Philippe Garrel.

The 18-strong competition line-up for the 70th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 20-Mar 1) has been unveiled by the festival’s new executive director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian.

Among the titles selected are new work by Sally Potter, Kelly Reichardt, Hong Sangsoo, Philippe Garrel, Rithy Panh, Tsai Ming-Liang and Silver Bear winner Christian Petzold.

Other intriguing projects include Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel’s long-gestating project Dau. Natasha.

Six of the 18 films selected...

Russia’s Ministry of Culture is calling for Phenomen Films, the producer of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s marathon project Dau, to return $340,000 (RUB22.5m) in production funding as well as $120,000 (RUB8m) in interest.

According to the Russian daily newspaper Izvestiya, an Arbitration Court in Moscow has ruled in favour of the Ministry since there appeared to be no sign of the project being completed and the last report on the production’s status had been in 2011 when shooting was completed on a specially constructed set in Kharkhov.

The co-production between Russia, Sweden, Germany and France had also received backing from the Swedish Film Institute, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Mdm, Arte France Cinéma, Ukrainian State Film Agency, Wdr/Arte, and Eurimages, and was shot at locations in St Petersburg, Moscow,, Baku, London and Copenhhagen as well as the studio set in Kharkhov.

Dau, which was pitched at the CineMart co-production market in Rotterdam in 2006 and presented as a co-production case study...

Dau

Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky // Writers: Ilya Khrzhanovsky, Susanne Marian, Vladimir Sorokin

Long touted as one of the most ambitious Russian films ever made (but perhaps one of the most ambitious film projects in the history of cinema itself) is Dau from director Ilya Khrzhanovsky. Over 700 hours of footage, a shoot that eclipsed six years amidst the director’s construction of a town that worked and operated as if it were a real place existing within a 1950’s timeframe, several published interviews and reports with those who experience set visits have come away describing something that sounds like pure madness. The extended shoot ended in a grand baccnalian bonfire three years ago, and in late 2013 it was announced that the film was locked in post-production in London labs, where a crew of people were struggling to piece it together into something rumored to be around two hours in length. Khrzhanovsky, who...

With only hours ago before the official selection for the Main Competition is announced, we’ve narrowed our final predictions to the following titles that we’re crystal-balling as the films that will be included on Thierry Fremaux’s highly anticipated list. Despite an obvious drought of Asian auteurs (we’re thinking the rumored frontrunner Takashi Miike won’t be included in tomorrow’s list) who’s to say there won’t be some definite surprises, like Jia Zhang-ke’s A Touch of Sin last year.

Several hopefuls appear not to be ready in time, including Malick, Hsou-hsien, Cristi Puiu, and Innarritu, to name a few. But there does appear to be a high quantity of exciting titles from some of cinema’s leading auteurs. We’re still a bit tentative about whether Xavier Dolan’s latest, Mommy, will get a main competition slot—instead, we’re predicting another surprise,...

Dau

Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky

Writers: Khrzhanovsky, Susanne Marian, Vladimir Sorokin, Kora Landau-Drobantseva

Producers: Coproduction Office’s Philippe Bober, Artyom Vasilev

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Teodor Currentzis, Youriy Alekseev, Radmila Schiogoleva

Patiently, we are still awaiting to hear if this might be the lucky year for Dau to make a bow. We had the film pegged for last year’s Most Anticipated list (#5) and fair to say, if the trend disturbingly continues, we won’t hear a peep out of it for the next twelve months ahead which will only confirm that production is completely off the tracks a la Synecdoche, New York. Winner at Rotterdam in 2005 for his debut film 4, Khrzhanovsky’s artistic ambition is unmatched by any I’ve seen in a very long time (I include Cuarón’s 7-years-in-the-making Gravity) — this on-going production (used three cinematographers, four editors) took a life of its own has had thousands of extras,...

Half Nelson: Chadwick’s Biopic Stretched Thin

An attempt to cover fifty years in the life of South African President Nelson Mandela in the time span of two and a half hours seems as exhausting to sit through as it was daunting to piece together, even if it is based on Mandela’s own autobiography. To their credit, Justin Chadwick and screenwriter William Nicholson have made a well-paced film, albeit one that gives us a rudimentary glance at Mandela’s development, doggedly comprehensive without taking any opportunities for depth or subtlety. Its rather conservative depiction of apartheid further places the film into a textbook category and seems an appropriate and elementary learning tool for those ignorant of the subject matter. Despite adhering to the trappings of generalization as seen in many genuinely produced biopics that would have been better served by sticking to one particular moment or period, Chadwick...

Dau

Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky

Writer(s): Khrzhanovsky and Vladimir Sorokin

Producer(s): Coproduction Office’s Philippe Bober & Artyom Vasilev

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Tba

Winner at Rotterdam in 2005 for his debut film 4, Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s artistic ambition is unmatched by any I’ve seen in a very long time. His second feature film has turned into a real life Synecdoche, New York. A production so epic that it mkes Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut appear like an easy shoot. An on-going production that took a life of its own has had thousands of extras, has taken over an entire town and has stretched well beyond the norms in terms of what occurs on set. As described by some published articles, we either have a mad genius or a mad man running the show.

Gist: This is a biographical film about Lev Landau.

Release Date: Crossing my fingers for Cannes this year.

Founded by Philippe Bober in the late 80′s, the Coproduction Office - a Sales Agent/Production Company based out of Paris comes to Cannes with only one item in the Main Competition in a filmmaker they’ve repped before in Ulrich Seidl and his part one of the trilogy, Paradise: Love. They’ve also got a restored print for Rossellini’s 1954 classic and of course, all eyes are on Cannes 2013 for the potential release of Dau by Ilya Khrzhanovsky.

Journey To Italy (New Restored Version) by Roberto Rossellini

Meteora by Spiros Stathoulopoulos

Paradise : Love (Paradies: Liebe) by Ulrich Seidl

Dau by Ilya Khrzhanovsky...

Before we unveil our most anticipated film of 2011, I figure we might want to emphasize some of the names that most frequently populated our Top 100 Most Anticipated Films list. Here is our version of 10 movers and shakers for 2011. Brady Corbet - Actor An actor who works with both the European filmmaker elite and American Independent helmers, Brady Corbet sees his work in Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene showcased in Sundance, he'll most likely have a double billing at Cannes for Antonio Campos' Simon Killer and Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. You should really look out for him in a mostly non-verbal part in Alistair Banks Griffin's excellent directorial debut Two Gates of Sleep -- which preemed in Cannes and should receive distribution sometime this year. He'll next appear in Regular Boy (the film adaptation of Coin Locker Babies) to be directed by commercials director Michele Civetta and also stars his wife,...

#87. Dau Director: Ilya KhrzhanovskyWriter(s): Khrjanovsky and Vladimir SorokinProducers: Philippe Bober and Artyom VasilevDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: Based on the book by Kora Drobantseva-Landau "Academician Landau: what our life was like". The plot is based on the life of the great Russian physicist of the 20th century, winner of the Nobel Prize, Lev Landau (1908-1968). Landau - or Dau, which is what his friends called him - was a "child prodigy"; he entered the university at the age of 13. By the age of 20-something, he had become a world-famous theoretical physicist.....(more) Cast: Teodor Kurentzis and Radmila Schiogoleva List Worthy Reasons...: Khrzhanovsky's 2005 debut 4 (Rotterdam winner) was originally conceived as a short and it took four years to complete, which sort of gives us a clue on how much time and effort the Russian filmmaker puts into his craft. Dau was part of 2006's Cannes Film Festival’s...