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No major film festival is complete without at least one Love Letter To Cinema™ from a filmmaker of some renown, to advocate the joys of the medium to an audience that doesn’t have to be told twice. French writer-director and Cannes regular Arnaud Desplechin brings that to the Croisette this year with “Filmlovers!,” a duly warm and nostalgia-washed cine-valentine, but one with a little more to say than just, “Movies, amirite?” Indeed, the film’s somewhat inelegant English-language title risks concealing the more specific focus of this unassuming but winning hybrid documentary: The French title, “Spectateurs!,” makes clear this is first and foremost a celebration of spectatorship rather than filmmaking, probing the dynamics of cinema audiences and their relationship to the screen. In either language, it’s impassioned enough to earn its exclamation point.

Not a major work but a bright, pleasurable one, with its director on more limber...

For his tenth Cannes feature premiere, Arnaud Desplechin chose to present a docu-fictional love letter to cinema. Two years after Brother and Sister was in Competition, Spectateurs (or Filmlovers!) is one of the festival’s Special Screenings, an effervescent walk down memory lane with a director who has helped shape contemporary French cinema for the better. It’s not hard for a Frenchman to be a cinephile––almost everyone is trained in film knowledge, either formally or informally, as part of their cultural upbringing. But Filmlovers! manages to set itself apart from all the other meta-documentaries or essays about how cinema made their director the person they are today. Instead it is both an honest and highly poetic feature that quite naturally absorbs film and literary references to address the structural role cinema has played for both Desplechin himself and our way of viewing the world.

Filmlovers! is narrated by Paul Dédalus,...

Movies are hot, according to Marshall McLuhan, who wasn’t paying them a compliment but placing them within his theory of hot and cool media. He was referring to the sensory richness that makes movies such a captivating and complete experience that they require little active participation from the audience. Just sit in the dark and let the magic wash over you. Arnaud Desplechin doesn’t disagree about the magic, but he puts a different slant on things in the docufiction Filmlovers! (Spectateurs!), whose focus is the moviegoer as an essential part of the equation.

Abounding in movie love, the director’s first feature since Brother and Sister cites more than 50 films in its eloquent onrush of clips and philosophizing and memory. But, in a departure from most such cinema essays, there’s no auteur namechecking (or onscreen titles ID’ing clips); it’s not those 50 films’ making-of or even their makers that matter here,...

When it was announced Arnaud Desplechin’s next feature Spectateurs! (titled the less-appealing Filmlovers! in English) would be a) a docu-fiction hybrid; b) about cinema and, in particular moviegoing; c) a continuation of the Paul Dédalus saga that’s starred Mathieu Amalric as the director’s analogue-of-sorts in 1996’s My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument and 2015’s My Golden Days, there was room for curiosity and confusion alike. Desplechin’s track record would, I think, sustain the former well enough, while that noted combination engendered the latter in spades.

Seeing Spectateurs! certainly answered questions as to how Desplechin would put these components in concert––it’s my favorite film of his in years, said as a great fan of the later, increasingly hard-to-find output. But the why of it only grew more mysterious: it’s about Paul Dédalus but is as much Desplechin playing him as Amalric,...

I’m possibly embargoed from speaking too much about Arnaud Desplechin’s Spectateurs! / Filmlovers!, which debuts at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22, but suffice it to say those who’ve loved the previous entries in his Paul Dedalus saga have nothing to worry about. Ahead of that premiere––and, God willing, news of U.S. acquisition––there’s a first trailer playing up the fiction side of this peculiar doc-narrative hybrid. (Whatever it takes to fit Mathieu Amalric!)

Speaking to Variety for the trailer’s debut, Desplechin calls Filmlovers! an “infinitely personal essay” that was initially proposed as a documentary about film projection. Per its discursive style, he says, “It was easy to write because I kept coming back to my own thoughts about cinema that were in my head for over twenty years.”

Find preview and poster below:

The post Arnaud Desplechin and Mathieu Amalric Salute Cinema In...

Arnaud Desplechin’s hybrid documentary “Spectateurs!” (“Filmlovers”) debuted a first trailer ahead of the film’s world premiere at Cannes on May 22.

The 88-minute docu is a love letter to cinema, inspired by Desplechin’s own discovery and passion for cinema.

Per the official Cannes description of the film, Desplechin wrote: “What does it mean, to go to the movies? Why have people been going for over one hundred years? I set out to celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic. So, I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age story. Memories, fiction and discoveries come together in an irrepressible torrent of pictures.”

“Spectateurs!” weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun...

Filming begins today on Spectateurs – a docu-fiction film that will see Cannes darling Arnaud Desplechin‘s complete his Paul Dédalus films which began with 1996’s My Sex Life… or How I Got into an Argument and was continued with 2016’s My Golden Days. Naturally we find Desplechin’s muse Mathieu Amalric return as Paul and we also have Françoise Lebrun toplining. Look for more casting news other the next couple of weeks as production takes over the Hauts de France region. CG Cinéma’s Charles Gillibert produces the film which will be likely invited to Cannes next May. This centers on a movie theatre from the 1960s to the present day.…...

Melvil Poupaud with Anne-Katrin Titze on Arnaud Desplechin: “For me he is one of the best metteurs en scène that I’ve worked with because of where he puts the camera, the choice of the lens, everything means something.”

In the second instalment with Melvil Poupaud on Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister, screenplay with Julie Peyr we discuss inspiration from Forest Whitaker in Clint Eastwood’s Bird and Jack Nicholson In Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces, Grégoire Hetzel’s score, a very particular smile shared by him and Marion Cotillard, a cowboy movie showdown in the supermarket, contradictions, and hungry ghosts.

Melvil Poupaud on Arnaud Desplechin: “He doesn’t want to be realistic or naturalistic. ” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Magnetic Melvil Poupaud opens on Tuesday, March 7 with a screening of Carine Tardieu’s The Young Lovers (Les Jeunes Amants) at 7:30pm followed by a Q&a with Melvil inside Florence Gould.

Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard in Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur) screening in Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Photo: Shanna Besson/Why Not Productions

In the first instalment with Melvil Poupaud (who is being honoured at the French Institute in New York next month) we discuss the dark side of Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur), Mathieu Amalric in A Christmas Tale and Kings And Queens, Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, a touch of François Ozon’s By The Grace Of God, James Joyce’s The Dead, Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale, and Woody Allen’s Coup De Chance with Lou de Laâge, Niels Schneider and Valérie Lemercier.

Melvil Poupaud with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I always understood that the most gratifying thing when you’re an actor is when a great director such as Eric Rohmer...

In the second big prize announcement by a Directors’ Fortnight partner, “The Mountain” (“La Montagne”), from emerging French auteur Thomas Salvador, has won the Sacd Prize, awarded by France’s Writers’ Guild for the best French-language movie in the section.

The second feature of the French actor-director after 2017’s promising “Vincent,” selected for San Sebastian’s prestige New Directors section, ”The Mountain” is sold internationally by Le Pacte which will also handle distribution in France.

From a screenplay written by Salvador and Naila Guiguet, which was selected for Critics’ Weeks’ Next Steps 2020, “The Mountain” turns on Pierre, 40, played by Salvador, who makes a sales pitch for his company’s robotic arm in Chamonix, the capital of the French Alps.

When his colleagues return to Paris, he stays on, pitching a tent just below the Aiguille du Midi cable car station, a spectacular pinnacle at 12,600 feet, in the lap of Mont Blanc.

It is lonely being an Anglophone Arnaud Desplechin fan, let alone one based in the U.K. A strong cult generated in the aftermath of his ’00s arthouse hits Kings and Queen and A Christmas Tale survives, but in terms of a theatrical release, his newer work will play once or twice at one-off screenings in the US, then fall to be retrieved (or ignored) in a VOD content library. And in Blighty they have lately got harsh, if uncomprehending reviews, creating further invisibility.

If the quality of Ismäel’s Ghosts, Oh, Mercy! and Deception denotes no fall-off, there’s still the impression Desplechin could use a broader hit to remind everyone how good he is, even as his reputation and industry success in France remains robust; My Golden Days had this exact impact after Jimmy P. disappointed some. Enter Brother and Sister.

Despite reports of boos at its Cannes screening,...

A version of this preview of this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup appeared in the Cannes edition of TheWrap magazine.

As the film industry — from the mightiest moguls to the scrappiest indie-theater owners — struggles to bring movies and moviegoing back to pre-covid standards, look to this year’s Cannes Film Festival to trumpet the cause, starting with a splashy premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” that’s clearly meant to send out an international message: “Remember summer movies? You love those. And they’re back!”

Beyond that Paramount blockbuster, Cannes 2022 seems to be delivering more of what the annual event is known for, in the best ways (providing an international platform for some of the world’s greatest films and filmmakers) and in the worst.

Even with its recurring shortcomings, the Cannes lineup provides an impressive menu of titles that cineastes everywhere have been eagerly awaiting, from David Cronenberg’s...

After being cancelled in 2020 and then delayed in 2021, the Cannes Film Festival is finally back on track for May 2022 on the French Riviera. The 75th installment of the international cinema showcase will take place from May 17 to May 28, and there will be 18 films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. Last year that honor went to the French thriller “Titane,” directed by Julia Ducournau. As of this writing several details are still to be announced including who will be on this year’s jury and who will be serving as jury president after Spike Lee presided over last year’s program.

A filmmaker’s previous track record at Cannes can sometimes give us an idea of who’s in a good position to claim the Palme. For instance, seven of this year’s entries in the official competition come from directors who have previously won...

“When I met you, you were ripe,” says Denis Podalydès’s Philip to his younger mistress (Léa Seydoux) in Arnaud Desplechin’s adaptation with Julie Peyr of Philip Roth’s Deception (Tromperie). She responds: “No, I was rotting on the floor under a tree.”

Arnaud Desplechin’s Frère Et Sœur (Brother And Sister), starring Marion Cotillard, Golshifteh Farahani, Melvil Poupaud, and Cosmina Stratan has been selected to screen in the 75th anniversary edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Arnaud’s Ismael's Ghosts was the 2017 Cannes Opening Night Gala selection and his Philip Roth adaptation Deception was a 2021 highlight.

Arnaud Desplechin with Anne-Katrin Titze on Philip Roth: “He’s as is, he’s absolutely imperfect, selfish as I was saying.”

Desplechin will have had ten world premieres at Cannes: Oh Mercy!; My Golden Days; Jimmy P: Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian; A Christmas Tale; Esther Kahn...

Mubi has unveiled its streaming offerings this April in the U.S. and leading the pack is a special spotlight on Franz Rogowski, star of their recent theatrical release Great Freedom. Selections include Christian Petzold’s Transit as well as a pair of underseen offerings, Luzifer and Aisles.

Also in the lineup are a number of recent releases, including Dominik Graf’s Fabian: Going to the Dogs, Alice Rohrwacher, Francesco Munzi, and Pietro Marcello’s Futura, Mario Furloni and Kate McLean’s Freeland, and Sion Sono’s Red Post On Escher Street. Timed with her new documentary Cow, a trio of shorts by Andrea Arnold will also arrive.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

April 1 | Battle Royale | Kinji Fukasaku

April 2 | Mood Indigo | Michel Gondry

April 3 | Army of Shadows | Jean-Pierre Melville

April 4 | Wasp | Andrea Arnold | Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold

April 5 | Tracks | Henry Jaglom | Method in the...

Denis Podalydès as Philip with Léa Seydoux in Arnaud Desplechin’s adaptation with Julie Peyr of Philip Roth’s Deception (Tromperie).

In the second of my series of conversations with Arnaud Desplechin we discuss filming Frère Et Sœur, starring Marion Cotillard with Golshifteh Farahani and Melvil Poupaud, and working on Deception (Tromperie) with longtime collaborator composer Grégoire Hetzel (Oh Mercy!; Ismael's Ghosts; My Golden Days; La Forêt; A Christmas Tale; Kings & Queen) and for the first time with cinematographer Yorick Le Saux.

Marion Cotillard stars in Arnaud Desplechin’s upcoming Frère Et Sœur Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Arnaud Desplechin’s adaptation with Julie Peyr of Philip Roth’s Deception (Tromperie), starring Denis Podalydès, Léa Seydoux (Bruno Dumont’s France), Emmanuelle Devos, and Anouk Grinberg was a highlight of the 74th Cannes Film Festival and New York’s Rendez-Vous with French...

Rarely have I been able to chart my relationship with a film like Arnaud Desplechin’s Deception. When we spoke in fall 2015 he told me Philip Roth’s slim, dialogue-driven novel was something of a millstone: “Perhaps it’s a book that I will never be able to adapt for the screen, and I know I will regret it for the rest of my days.” You can imagine my thrill at the news, in December 2020, that he pulled it off with Léa Seydoux and Denis Polydalès, but even by these metrics I wasn’t prepared for the film that, by acting as a faithful rendition of Roth’s barely fictional novel (largely dialogue between lovers written as he was engaging in an actual affair), is perhaps (hopefully) the closest we’ll ever get to a Roth biopic—the rare adaptation that adds to its source’s corpus.

Though awaiting U.

If you’re looking for something to watch on HBO Max this month, you may want to prioritize the following titles that are leaving the streaming service throughout February. Below, we’ve assembled a complete list of everything leaving HBO Max in February, which ranges from Oscar-winning blockbusters to stone-cold classics to delightful comedies.

Noteworthy films leaving HBO Max this month include “Dunkirk,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Amistad,” “Pitch Perfect,” “Independence Day,” “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “The Goonies,” “Joker” and “The Lego Batman Movie.” It’s also last call for DC films “Wonder Woman,” “Aquaman,” “Birds of Prey” and “Suicide Squad.”

The end of February will also mark the departure of a number of documentary series that aired on CNN, including “The Bush Years,” “The Seventies,” “The Eighties,” ”The Nineties,” ”The Movies” and ”The Story of Late Night.”

Check out the full list of everything leaving HBO Max in February 2022 below.

Andreas Fontana’s haunting Azor, co-written with Mariano Llinas, stars Fabrizio Rongione and Stéphanie Cléau: “The cinematography was done by Gabriel Sandru and we were talking a lot about that.”

Andreas Fontana’s Azor, co-written with Mariano Llinas, shot by Gabriel Sandru with costumes by Simona Martínez, stars Fabrizio Rongione and Stéphanie Cléau.

Andreas Fontana with Anne-Katrin Titze on Jorge Luis Borges: “Borges of course in terms of literary inspiration is very important.”

In my discussion with the director we touch on the influence of Howard Hawks and Jorge Luis Borges, Joan Didion’s codes and games, casting director Alexandre Nazarian, the cinematography, costumes, and filming in Argentina with non-professional actors, “men who are very impressive”.

Boredom is seen as “divine punishment,” old money...

The summer movie season may be winding down, but HBO Max is keeping the movie ball rolling in September 2021. HBO Max’s list of new releases this month is heavy on the film side of things – both in library and original offerings.

Two Warner Bros. films of note arrive this month. The James Wan-directed horror tale Malignant premieres on Sept. 10 and is followed by Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho on Sept. 17. The next installment in Adventure Time: Distant Lands (which is kind of like a film series!) is titled Wizard City and opens the month on Sept. 2

Of course, it wouldn’t be a new month of HBO Max releases without some interesting evergreen Warner movie titles. Sept. 1 finds all eight Harry Potter movies returning to WarnerMedia’s streaming service. They will be accompanied by The Goonies, The Evil Dead, Cloverfield, and more. Later on in the month, Mortal Kombat (Sept.

On September 1, all eight Harry Potter films return home to HBO Max.

September also brings Clint Eastwood’s latest film Cry Macho on the 17th and director James Wan’s Malignant on the 10th. Both Cry Macho and Malignant will be available in theaters and on HBO Max the same day. They will stream on the $14.99/month ad-Free HBO Max plan for 31 days after their debuts.

See all of the new content on HBO Max for September, 2021, below. The list is organized alphabetically by date.

September 1:

A Hijacking

The Animal

Army Of Darkness

The Benchwarmers

Bodas de Oro – aka The Anniversary

The Cell 2

Cloverfield

Dead Again

Deck the Halls

Detour

Drinking Buddies

Epic Movie

Event Horizon

The Evil Dead

Evil Dead 2

Flawless

The Forgotten

Fun Size

The Gallows

The Good German

The Good Heart

The Goonies

Green Lantern

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the...

Though Léa Seydoux’s trip to the Cannes Film Festival is now in question after a positive Covid-19 diagnosis, the French actress still has a handful of movies headed to the Croisette this month. Along with “The French Dispatch” from Wes Anderson, “The Story of My Wife” from Ildikó Enyedi, and “On a Half Clear Morning” from Bruno Dumont, the “Blue Is the Warmest Color” Palme d’Or winner also stars in Arnaud Desplechin’s “Deception.” Adapted from Philip Roth’s slim 1990 novel, the film bows in the Cannes Premiere section, and a first trailer in French has arrived. Check it out below.

Desplechin, known for films like “Kings & Queen” and “My Golden Days,” had a tricky adaptation on his hands in bringing a novel built entirely on dialogue between two adulterous lovers to the screen. The original book centers on a married American man named Philip, now an expat in London,...

In terms of French cinema, you can’t get much better than filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin. The man behind features such as “The Sentinel,” “My Golden Days,” and “Ismael’s Ghosts” consistently brings something new to each film, often switching genres between films. So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that, coming off of a crime drama and a Philip Roth adaptation, Desplechin is venturing into the realm of family drama for “Brother and Sister.”

Read More: ‘Deception’: Léa Seydoux Stars In Arnaud Desplechin’s Secret Drama Filmed During Lockdown

According to Arte (via The Film Stage), Arnaud Desplechin is set to begin production shortly on his next film, titled “Brother and Sister.” In addition to the film being announced, it appears the filmmaker is reteaming with French actress Marion Cotillard for the film.

Continue reading ‘Brother And Sister’: Marion Cotillard Reteams With Filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin For A...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

Dominique Blanc, Gaël Kamilindi, Clément Hervieu-Léger, Michel Vuillermoz, Jennifer Decker, Florence Viala, and Christophe Montenez in Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, directed by Arnaud Desplechin at the Comédie-Française Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

In the final instalment of my in-depth conversation with Arnaud Desplechin on Oh Mercy!, which received six César nominations, we discussed how a Bob Dylan album and a joke by Kent Jones inspired the title. The director and co-screenwriter (with Léa Mysius) spoke about the influence of Emmanuel Lévinas, the performance by Lumière winner Roschdy Zem as Commissaire Daoud, the costumes by Nathalie Raoul, and the dynamic between Sara Forestier as Marie and Léa Seydoux as Claude.

Lieutenant Cotterel (Antoine Reinartz) confronts Marie (Sara Forestier) and Claude (Léa Seydoux)

Anne-Katrin Titze: Now we’ve chatted more about the animals than about your marvellous actresses. I would like to talk about the frown. The permanent frown on Sara’s face.

The revered film director vowed never to touch theatre. So why is he staging the great Aids epic Angels in America? Apparently, it’s all a misunderstanding

Arnaud Desplechin looks surprisingly calm as he excuses himself to listen to a voicemail from the Comédie-Française’s technical team. France is one week into a general strike over pension reform and the country’s premier theatre company has followed suit, resulting in cancelled performances and rehearsals. “We take it day by day,” says Desplechin, whose new production of Angels in America is due to open in mid-January. “It will start to get difficult if it continues.” We spoke in December and the strike is still going strong, but there is no plan to delay.

It doesn’t help that Tony Kushner’s sprawling 1990s play about the Aids crisis is only Desplechin’s second theatre project, his first being a 2015 version of August Strindberg’s Father.

Photo by Lindsay Seide

Outside his native France, Arnaud Desplechin’s latest film, Roubaix: A Light (or Oh Mercy!), has mostly been received with raised eyebrows. After employing espionage subplots in his prior two films (Ismael’s Ghosts from 2018 and My Golden Days from 2015), his latest fully embraces the crime procedural, which, at first glance, looks to be about as close to his body of work as a David Fincher film is to, well, a Desplechin. But for fans of his highly idiosyncratic filmmaking, Oh Mercy! is a fascinating entry into Desplechin’s oeuvre for precisely all of the reasons it deviates from the characteristics we’ve come to associate with him. One of the hallmarks of Desplechin’s filmmaking (and there are many) is the relentless energy, and with Oh Mercy!, nearing the age of 60, Desplechin shows no signs of slowing down, transforming as a filmmaker once again, this...

Arnaud Desplechin (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on an Ingmar Bergman film: "I remember this scene that I saw so young … in Cries & Whispers, where Erland Josephson is visiting Liv Ullmann.” Photo: Ed Bahlman

Arnaud Desplechin’s Oh Mercy!, co-written with Léa Mysius, shot by Irina Lubtchansky, music composed by Grégoire Hetzel stars Léa Seydoux, Roschdy Zem, Sara Forestier, and Antoine Reinartz.

Arnaud Desplechin on his Oh Mercy! composer: “It was not a Bernard Herrmann inspiration or George Delerue inspiration. It was just pure Grégoire Hetzel. It was a perfect fit with the plot. ” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the first instalment of my in-depth conversation with the director the morning before the North American premiere at the New York Film Festival we discussed his work with editor Laurence Briaud, listening to Ryuchi Sakamoto and Toru Takemitsu, not having a Bernard Herrmann or George Delerue inspiration for Grégoire Hetzel’s score, what...

The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critic Leonardo Goi and editor Daniel Kasman.Oh MercyDear Danny, I only left Cannes yesterday, and yet the Croisette seemed unrealistically far this morning, almost as if it had already begun to drift into a cloud in time—as though it had never happened. This is my last dispatch of the year; like yours, it finds me writing you from the comforts of home. I began my day re-reading our correspondences—partly to give in to the nostalgia, but also to remind myself of all we’ve seen the past couple of weeks. And with the benefits of a good night’s sleep, things looked a lot clearer, and double bills I hadn’t yet thought of began to surface: films we had seen and written on in separate dispatches, which suddenly made for eye-opening pairings. What to make of...

Xavier Dolan is “enfant terrible” no more. The director has now turned 30, and he got emotional and teary-eyed while introducing his latest film, “Matthias and Maxime,” on Wednesday at Cannes.

And critics could sense that his latest film suggests the director is slowing down and looking back on his youth with more sensitivity and even maturity.

“‘Matthias & Maxime’ deals with friendship and self discovery in a way that will be familiar to fans of Dolan’s previous work, but it is a, dare we say, more mature work,” TheWrap’s Steve Pond wrote in his review, calling the film a return to form despite the young director’s blistering pace and constant presence at Cannes. “There’s a reflection to go with the gleeful, transgressive energy, a sense of looking back fondly at the jarring but seminal moments that form identity.”

Also Read: 'Matthias & Maxime' Film...

French auteur Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days, recent Cannes opener Ismael’s Ghosts) gives us two movies for the price of one with Oh Mercy! (Roubaix, une lumiere). Or, to be more precise, one fascinating, hourlong movie about the lower classes and underbelly of contemporary northern France and the other an hourlong CSI: Roubaix episode that’s filled with not only familiar but also quite repetitive interrogations, prison-cell visits and reconstruction attempts at the actual crime scene.

Because of Desplechin’s reputation, a Cannes competition slot and the participation of Bond Girl Lea Seydoux in a supporting role — ...

French auteur Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days, recent Cannes opener Ismael’s Ghosts) gives us two movies for the price of one with Oh Mercy! (Roubaix, une lumiere). Or, to be more precise, one fascinating, hourlong movie about the lower classes and underbelly of contemporary northern France and the other an hourlong CSI: Roubaix episode that’s filled with not only familiar but also quite repetitive interrogations, prison-cell visits and reconstruction attempts at the actual crime scene.

Because of Desplechin’s reputation, a Cannes competition slot and the participation of Bond Girl Lea Seydoux in a supporting role — ...

Nadav Lapid’s astonishing, maddening, brilliant, hilarious, obstinate, and altogether unmissable new film “Synonyms” opens with a sequence that might be described as a sideways attempt at psychic suicide. A twentysomething Israeli traveler named Yoav (extraordinary newcomer Tom Mercier) strides through the rainy streets of Paris in a shaky low-def shot that resembles paparazzi footage of a celebrity trying to leave the press behind. He storms into one of those gorgeous old buildings along the banks of the Seine, digs out the hide-a-key, and opens the door to a cold and cavernous apartment. There’s no couch, no bed, no furniture of any kind, but Yoav doesn’t seem to mind the monastic vibe; the camera relaxes into the refined grammar of contemporary European cinema as he surveys the empty space.

Yoav strips nude in the tub, revealing a soldier’s body, and yanks at his genitals. Then, some rustling from the next room over.

Safy Nebbou’s “Who You Think I Am,” the romantic drama with Juliette Binoche that’s world premiering in the Berlin Film Festival’s Special Gala section, has been sold nearly worldwide by Playtime.

Binoche stars as 50-year-old Claire Millaud, who creates a fake profile as a younger woman, Clara, on social media to spy on her lover, Ludo. But as her younger avatar, Claire ends up falling in love with one of Ludo’s friends, Alex.

Playtime has sold “Who You Think I Am” to Canada (Axia), Spain (Wanda), Italy (I Wonder), Germany (Alamode), Australia (Palace), Switzerland (Agora), Benelux (Cineart), Greece (Rosebud), Austria (Thimfilm), Israel (Red Cape), South America (California Filmes), China (Huashi TV), Sweden (TriArt), Hungary (HungariCom), Baltics (BestFilm), Middle East (Italia Film), Portugal (Midas), Finland (Cinema Mondo), Taiwan (Sky Digi Entertainment) and Denmark (Camera Film).

Playtime’s Nicolas Brigaud-Robert said Binoche was a big draw for distributors...

The three French majority productions playing in competition in Venice are entirely different from one another in style and tone, and even more so in terms of their American distribution strategies.

Both Jacques Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers” and Olivier Assayas’ “Double Lives” will be released under significantly different conditions, while David Oelhoffen’s “Close Enemies” will hit the Lido still looking for a buyer. Taken all together, however, these three cases offer a reasonable snapshot of the current U.S. market for French cinema.

Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers” stands as the outlier, one of the rare French productions to land U.S. distribution before the cameras ever rolled. L.A.-based production company Annapurna Pictures came on board in May 2017 and announced that it would release the English-language Western through its nascent distribution arm.

Time will no doubt tell, but Annapurna’s interest in the project likely does...

During the French Revolution, a young monk finds his quiet monastery in a verdant nook of the South of France overrun by soldiers and new ideas in A Violent Desire for Joy (Un desir violent de bonheur). Working in the tradition of Rohmer, Pasolini and Eugene Green, young filmmaker Clement Schneider, born in 1989, has created a film that’s less concerned with historical veracity and expensive re-enactments than it is with feelings and concepts compacted to a recognizable and human scale. Starring Quentin Dolmaire, the curly-haired breakout star from Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days, as the holy man, and given ...

During the French Revolution, a young monk finds his quiet monastery in a verdant nook of the South of France overrun by soldiers and new ideas in A Violent Desire for Joy (Un desir violent de bonheur). Working in the tradition of Rohmer, Pasolini and Eugene Green, young filmmaker Clement Schneider, born in 1989, has created a film that’s less concerned with historical veracity and expensive re-enactments than it is with feelings and concepts compacted to a recognizable and human scale. Starring Quentin Dolmaire, the curly-haired breakout star from Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days, as the holy man, and given ...

In 2014’s My Golden Days, Arnaud Desplechin revisited the childhood of Ivan Dedalus, brother of the anchoring protagonist of his 1996 breakthrough My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument. With Ismael’s Ghosts, Desplechin continues toying with the Dedalus brothers — in this iteration, Ivan is played by Louis Garrel in a movie being written by Ismaël Vuillard (Desplechin’s regular on-screen alter-ago Mathieu Amalric). Vuillard is a director writing his latest film on a severe, mood-altering constant cocktail of whiskey, wine and pills. His longstanding relationship with scientist Sylvia (Charlotte Ganisbourg) understandably takes a hit when first wife Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) — […]...

In 2014’s My Golden Days, Arnaud Desplechin revisited the childhood of Ivan Dedalus, brother of the anchoring protagonist of his 1996 breakthrough My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument. With Ismael’s Ghosts, Desplechin continues toying with the Dedalus brothers — in this iteration, Ivan is played by Louis Garrel in a movie being written by Ismaël Vuillard (Desplechin’s regular on-screen alter-ago Mathieu Amalric). Vuillard is a director writing his latest film on a severe, mood-altering constant cocktail of whiskey, wine and pills. His longstanding relationship with scientist Sylvia (Charlotte Ganisbourg) understandably takes a hit when first wife Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) — […]...

Arnaud Desplechin loves stories – the ones you show on a screen, the ones people regale others with that reveal delusions and dreams, the ones we tell ourselves in order to survive. A French filmmaker who's given us some of the warmest and most eccentric movies to come out of that country (My Sex Life ... or How I Got Into an Argument, Kings and Queen, A Christmas Tale), he's a director who loves to pile incident upon incident, propelling his characters from one dramatic pivot point to the next in the name of wreaking emotional havoc.

Arnaud Desplechin and Marion Cotillard on the set of Ismael's Ghosts.If last year saw Olivier Assayas doing his version of a ghost story with Personal Shopper, this year, it apparently fell upon French contemporary Arnaud Desplechin to do the same with Ismael’s Ghosts. Anyone expecting Desplechin to go full genre, though, will likely be disappointed, which is to say that Ismael’s Ghosts isn't much of a ghost story—or at least not any more of a ghost story than any of his other films, from his debut feature, the beautifully titled La vie des morts (1991), to his most recent, the coming-of-age drama My Golden Days (2015). What is a ghost story, after all, except the present being haunted by the past? Drawing from a vast array of references, Desplechin weaves together stories and fragments of stories that shift to and fro with wild abandon. Here, Ismaël Vuillard (a...

Arnaud Desplechin with Mathieu Amalric: "What I love about the scene of the dance between Charlotte Gainsbourg (Sylvia) and Marion Cotillard (Carlotta) - is that Marion is on the side of life." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the final installment of my conversation with the Ismael’s Ghosts: Director’s Cut (Les Fantômes D'Ismaël) director Arnaud Desplechin and his longtime star Mathieu Amalric (My Golden Days, La Sentinelle, Un Conte De Noël, Rois Et Rein, My Sex Life... or How I Got into an Argument, Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), we discuss the dance scene between Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard, Mathieu's performance of the theme from Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie, composer Grégoire Hetzel, the modesty of Ivan Dedalus (Louis Garrel), John Gielgud's character in Alain Resnais' Providence, and what could be the opposite of a scene from Woody Allen's Bananas.

Arnaud Desplechin on Mathieu...

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Mary Magdalene [my review]

Rooney Mara stars in this Biblical drama written by Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett. (male director)

Tomb Raider [my review]

Alicia Vikander stars as a puzzle-solving adventurer in this action movie. Cowritten by Geneva Robertson-Dworet. (male director)

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My Golden Days [IMDb]

Julie Peyr cowrites this French drama about a man reflecting on his childhood and adolescence. (male director)

Gook [IMDb] pictured

Simone Baker costars as an African-American girl who strikes up an unlikely friendship with two Korean-American brothers in Los Angeles. (male writer-director)

Please let me know if I’ve missed any movies directed by, written by, or about women.

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Arnaud Desplechin’s coming-of-age tale, My Golden Days, follows anthropologist Paul Dédalus (played by Desplechin favourite, Mathieu Amalric) who is planning to return to his home country of France, from Tajikistan. Held by security at the airport Paul recounts past memories and events. From a covert mission in the Ussr where he offers his passport and identity to a young Russian, his mother’s mental illness and his father’s depression. However, what the film centres on more so than any of these is Paul’s relationship with Esther (Lou Roy-Lecollinet).

Desplechin captures perfectly, the all-consuming rollercoaster that is your first love and how the journey from childhood to adulthood can impact these relationships that were once seen as infinite. We see a young Paul (played by Quentin Dolmaire) evolve from a teenager who “feels nothing” and who brushes incidents off nonchalantly, to someone with much more to lose as...

You’d be hard-pressed to think of three actors more emblematic of French cinema than Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Mathieu Amalric. Francophiles have a rare chance to see all three onscreen together in “Ismael’s Ghosts,” the latest film from “My Golden Days” director Arnaud Desplechin. The film opened the 2017 Cannes Film Festival to mixed reviews, and this latest iteration tacked on 20 more minutes to a story that many felt was overwrought at the time. In the latest trailer teases a love triangle with a twist, but offers no hint at the movie’s reported espionage chapter.

Per the official synopsis: “Ismaël Vuillard (Amalric) makes films. He is in the middle of one about Ivan, an atypical diplomat inspired by his brother. Along with Bloom, his master and father-in-law, Ismaël still mourns the death of Carlotta (Cotillard), twenty years earlier. Yet he has started his life over again with...

Following up one of his best films in some time, My Golden Days, Arnaud Desplechin is back with Ismael’s Ghosts. Starring Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mathieu Amalric, and Louis Garrel, the film opened Cannes Film Festival last year and now the director’s cut will be arriving in the U.S. next month. Ahead of the release, Magnolia Pictures has now released a new trailer for the story following a filmmaker and the women in his life, one of who reappears as a ghost.

“The story doesn’t just leap back and forth in time; it freely switches between reality and fantasy, and also frequently dives into the film-within-the-film – both as a script being written and as a shoot in progress – which, in turn, has its own flashbacks and recollections,” Giovanni Marchini Camia said in his rave review from Cannes. “Far from mere ostentation or playfulness, this proliferation of narrative layers,...

Last spring, “Ismael’s Ghosts,” the latest from acclaimed auteur Arnaud Desplechin (“A Christmas Tale,” “Kings & Queens,” “My Golden Days“), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival with very little buzz. We called it a “watchable amalgam of all his best and worst tendencies.” However, it’s now landing stateside with a new version that might turn the tide of critical opinion.

Grégoire Hetzel: "Joy is difficult to translate." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The composer for Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse), A Christmas Tale (Un Conte De Noël); Kings & Queen (Rois Et Reine); La Forêt and The Beloved (L'Aimée), Mathieu Amalric's The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue), Cédric Anger's Next Time I'll Aim For the Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur), and Renaud Fely's L'Ami (François D'Assise Et Ses Frères) spoke with me about scoring Catherine Corsini's Summertime (La Belle Saison) starring Izïa Higelin and Cécile de France and Anne Fontaine's The Innocents (Agnus Dei).

Delphine (Izïa Higelin) in Paris

Grégoire Hetzel, who previously worked with Corsini on Les Ambitieux and Three Worlds (Trois Mondes) points out the similarity between her joy and Anne Fontaine's religion in our conversation high above Central Park.

The love story in Summertime...

Grégoire Hetzel with Anne-Katrin Titze: "It's like Bernard Herrmann or Ravel." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Grégoire Hetzel scored Mathieu Amalric's chronicle of fluid crime The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue) and César winning director Arnaud Desplechin's mythical braid of adventure My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse), A Christmas Tale (Un Conte De Noël); Kings & Queen (Rois Et Reine); La Forêt and The Beloved (L'Aimée).

Grégoire recently worked on Cédric Anger's Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart (La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur); Anne Fontaine's The Innocents (Agnus Dei); Renaud Fely's L'Ami (François D'Assise Et Ses Frères), Mathieu Demy's Americano and Catherine Corsini's Summertime (La Belle Saison), which he presented at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York.

Arnaud Desplechin: "In Arnaud's films the music is always underscored …" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Herrmann and Maurice Ravel eventually reverberated...

Oscar-nominated film also a front-runner in Cesars.

Franco-Turkish director Deniz Gamze Erguven’s debut feature Mustang scored a hat-trick at the Lumière awards — France’s equivalent to the Golden Globes — on Monday evening (Feb 8).

The Oscar-nominated picture clinched prizes for best film and best first film while its young cast – Güneş Nezihe Şensoy, Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu, Elit Işcan, Tuğba Sunguroğlu and Ilayda Akdoğan - shared the best female discovery prize.

The coming-of-age tale about five sisters growing up under the thumb of a strict and conservative grandmother and uncle, is in the foreign language Oscar race and also heavily nominated in France’s upcoming Césars awards [Feb 26].

Some 600 guests from the world of cinema attended the 21st edition of the awards ceremony at the Espace Pierre Cardin at which actress Isabelle Huppert was also honoured.

Arnaud Desplechin won the best director award for My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse).

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