IFC has the new Dumont

I'm a little slow on the updates lately, but earlier this week, IFC Films picked up the latest from Bruno Dumont, Hadewijch. The film premiered at Toronto and screens at the New York Film Festival tomorrow.

Foreign Oscar Submissions and TIFF and Deuville Award Winners

The submissions for the foreign language Oscars are all due on 1 October, and so far, thirty countries have announced their entries. Currently, the Netherlands are reconsidering their choice of Jean van de Velde's The Silent Army [Wit licht], which played out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, as it risks being disqualified for not being "Dutch" enough; a good portion of the dialogue is in English. Thanks to Movie On for the full list. Of the films below, only one filmmaker (Giuseppe Tornatore) is a previous winner, and so far six (maybe seven) have US distribution. David Hudson ponders why Germany, and not Austria, will be submitting Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon over at The Auteurs Daily.

Armenia: Autumn of the Magician, d. Ruben Gevorkyants, Vahe Gevorkyants
Austria: Ein Augenblick Freiheit [For a Moment, Freedom], d. Arash T. Riahi
Belgium: De helaasheid der dingen [The Misfortunates], d. Felix van Groeningen
Brazil: Salve Geral, d. Sérgio Rezende
Bulgaria: The World is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner, d. Stephan Komandarev
Chile: Dawson Isla 10 [Dawson Island 10], d. Miguel Littin
Finland: Postia pappi Jaakobille [Letters to Father Jacob], d. Klaus Härö
France: Un prophète [A Prophet], d. Jacques Audiard, Sony Pictures Classics
Germany: Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon], d. Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Classics
Hong Kong: Prince of Tears, d. Yonfan
Hungary: Kaméleon [Chameleon], d. Krisztina Goda
India: Harishchandrachi Factory, d. Paresh Mokashi
Iran: About Elly, d. Asghar Farhadi, Here! Films
Italy: Baarìa, d. Giuseppe Tornatore
Japan: Nobody to Watch Over Me, d. Ryôichi Kimizuka
Kazakhstan: Kelin, d. Ermek Tursunov
Lithuania: Duburys [Waterhole], d. Gitis Luksas
Morocco: Casanegra, d. Nour Eddine Lakhmari
Portugal: Um Amor de Perdição [Doomed Love], d. Mário Barroso
Romania: Poliţist, adj.. [Police, Adjetive], d. Corneliu Porumboiu, IFC Films
Serbia: Here and There, d. Darko Lungulov
Slovenia: Pokrajina Št.2 [Landscape No.2], d. Vinko Moderndorfer, Vanguard [released on DVD 25 August]
South Africa: White Wedding, d. Jann Turner
South Korea: Mother, d. Bong Joon-ho, Magnolia
Sri Lanka: Akasa Kusum [Flowers in the Sky], d. Prasanna Vithanage
Sweden: De ofrivilliga [Involuntary], d. Ruben Östlund
Switzerland: Home, d. Ursula Meier, Lorber Films (?)
Taiwan: No puedo vivir sin ti, d. Leon Dai
Thailand: Best in Time, d. Youngyooth Thongkonthun
Venezuela: Libertador Morales, el justiciero, d. Efterpi Charalambidis


Though technically not a competitive film festival like Cannes, Sundance, Venice or Berlin, the selected few awards given at this year's Toronto International Film Festival were announced over the weekend.

People's Choice Award: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels
- First Runner-Up: Mao's Last Dancer - d. Bruce Beresford
- Second Runner-Up: Micmacs [Micmacs à tire-larigot] - d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
People's Choice Award for Documentary: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls - d. Leanne Pooley
- Runner-Up: Capitalism: A Love Story - d. Michael Moore
People's Choice for Midnight Madness: The Loved Ones - d. Sean Byrne
- Runner-Up: Daybreakers - d. Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Best Canadian Feature Film: Cairo Time - d. Ruba Nadda
Best Canadian First Feature Film: The Wild Hunt - d. Alexandre Franchi

FIPRESCI Prize for Special Presentations Section: Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
FIPRESCI Prize for Discovery Section: The Man Beyond the Bridge - d. Laxmikant Shetgaonkar


Precious also tied for the Prix du jury at the 35th annual Deauville Festival du cinéma américain last week. The jury was headed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and included actors Hiam Abbas, Émilie Dequenne, Deborah François, Sandrine Kiberlain, Géraldine Pailhas, Dany Boon, screenwriter Jean-Loup Dabadie (César et Rosalie), and directors Patrice Leconte and Bruno Podalydès (Dieu seul me voit). The winners are below.

Grand Prix: The Messenger - d. Oren Moverman
Prix du jury: (tie) Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels; Sin Nombre - d. Cary Fukunaga
Prix de la révélation Cartier [Cartier Newcomer Award]: Humpday - d. Lynn Shelton

The Decade List: Flandres (2006)

Flandres [Flanders] - dir. Bruno Dumont

[Edited from an earlier post]

At one point a couple years ago, I (along with a handful of others) noticed a trend in contemporary French cinema. There was this abundance of films coming from the country that were branded with a certain blend of controversy. Most of them were minimalist examinations of human relations that traveled beyond realism to metaphysical art pieces. They usually contained unsimulated sex, though it was never for titillation or even a pragmatic depiction of life. Some of them were gruesome, films whose minimalism aided in the dread and shock of the eventual violence. They were generally considered part of a movement of French extremism, though a friend of mine preferred something along the lines of analytical, anatomical art films. Catherine Breillat was their unofficial leader, if for no other reason than the residual hatred she stirred from her films as a result of her uncompromising forcefulness and (perhaps) her detractors' underlying misogyny. Bruno Dumont was one of the chief filmmakers of this so-called movement, whose The Life of Jésus [La vie de Jésus] and L'humanité won him praise that was swiftly taken away with 2003’s Twentynine Palms. Naturally, I loved Twentynine Palms, but people certainly stopped paying as close of attention to Dumont afterward. Flandres was awarded the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but with little fanfare. No US distributor wanted it, and it was released on a total of two screens sometime in May of 2007.

It makes a kind of unfortunate sense that no one knew quite what to do with Flandres. On its surface, Flandres is a war film about no war in particular. The decision to leave the war unnamed poses as difficult in marketing in a country that’s still at war. Audiences want their war films didactic, whether undeniably patriotic or bluntly skeptical, and they want a name. It’s that name that gives these films their so-called power and keeps them from revealing any form of art. But that’s being hypothetical; the box office failures of Rendition and Lions for Lambs proved that American audiences really didn't want anything to do with their own war when Flandres was released… at least not in their cinema. The Hurt Locker's recent success among the arthouse crowd may suggest things have changed, or may just speak for the film's quality (and Rendition and Lions for Lambs' lack thereof). On another surface level, Flandres retains the minimalist approach Dumont exhibited in Twentynine Palms. In fact, I’m not terribly sure what I took or what I’m supposed to take from the film. Yet I can’t say it hasn’t found its place in my afterthoughts. It reminds me a bit of Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day. Both films appear to give the viewer close to nothing in way of plot or action (though still notably violent and grisly), yet there’s something unnerving at work. Some of the most difficult films I’ve ever watched appear simple, a sort of wolf in sheep’s clothing, though seeing Béatrice Dalle bite the flesh off a young boy or a soldier being castrated aren’t the images you’d associate with a sheep.

On another level, Flandres is about the effects of war on life and vice versa. Dumont introduces the film with two friends, quiet farm boy Demester (Samuel Boidin) and neighbor Barbe (Adélaïde Leroux). They go on walks together and fuck apathetically in the grass. Barbe meets Blondel (Henri Cretel) at a bar, fucks him in the back of his car, and introduces him to her and Demester’s small circle of friends. It turns out that Demester and Blondel are both enlisted in the same squadron. Thus a love triangle begins, but Dumont isn’t as interested in the triangle as much as the psychology of those involved and their subsequent actions. The story is as stripped down as the characters, who Dumont never seems to recognize as "human beings." As usual for Dumont (outside of L'humanité), he uses non-actors to play the parts (I’d be surprised if you’d heard of any of Dumont’s actors, save Katerina Golubeva who appeared in a few Claire Denis film and infamously had unsimulated sex with Guillaume Depardieu in Pola X, though you’ve probably already forgotten about that). His use of non-actors, especially as homely as they tend to be, is just as effective as Catherine Breillat’s casting of a Gucci model and a porn star in her super-meta Anatomy of Hell [Anatomie de l'enfer]. Without asking for “performances,” he boils Flandres down to implications and intentions. One isn’t supposed to deduce motive or understanding from the actor’s face as you might in an Isabelle Huppert film, but instead make assertions from actions. Flandres is a film whose understanding is completely onscreen and, at the same time, nowhere to be found within the frame.

With: Adélaïde Leroux, Samuel Boidin, Henri Cretel, Inge Decaesteker, Jean-Marie Bruveart, David Poulain, Patrice Venant, David Legay
Screenplay: Bruno Dumont
Cinematography: Yves Cape
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: International Film Circuit/Koch Lorber

Premiere: 23 May 2006 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 21 April 2007 (City of Lights, City of Angels)

Awards: Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)

New York Film Festival line-up, 2009

Yesterday the New York Film Festival announced their prestigious line-up, all of which only serves to give the high profile international releases of the year their premiere in the States. This year is heavily populated by European auteurs, and only three American films will screen (Life During Wartime, Don Argott's doc The Art of the Steal, Ilisa Barish and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Sweetgrass and Lee Daniels' Precious, which will have played at nearly every single major festival in 2009 before Lionsgate throws it onto theatres with a giant Oscar push in November). The line-up is listed below:

- 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak [36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup] - d. Jacques Rivette
- Antichrist - d. Lars von Trier
- The Art of the Steal - d. Don Argott
- Bluebeard [La barbe bleue] - d. Catherine Breillat
- Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos] - d. Pedro Almodóvar
- Crossroads of Youth - d. An Jong-hwa (the oldest surviving Korean film)
- Eccentricites of a Blonde [Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loira] - d. Manoel de Oliviera
- Everyone Else [Alle Anderen] - d. Maren Ade
- Ghost Town - d. Zhao Dayong
- Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
- Independencia - d. Raya Martin
- Inferno [L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot] - d. Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea
- Kanikosen - d. Sabu
- Lebanon - d. Samuel Maoz
- Life During Wartime - d. Todd Solondz
- Min Yé - d. Souleymane Cissé
- Mother - d. Bong Joon-ho
- Ne change rien - d. Pedro Costa
- Police, Adjective [Politist, adjectiv] - d. Corneliu Porumboiu
- Precious - d. Lee Daniels
- Room and a Half - d. Andrey Khrzhanovsky
- Sweetgrass - d. Ilisa Barish, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
- Sweet Rush [Tatarak] - d. Andrzej Wajda
- To Die Like a Man [Morrer Como Um Homem] - d. João Pedro Rodrigues
- Vincere - d. Marco Bellocchio
- White Material - d. Claire Denis
- The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] - d. Michael Haneke
- Wild Grass [Les herbes folles] - d. Alain Resnais
- The Wizard of Oz - d. Victor Fleming, 70th Anniversary

8 of the films above are going in with US distribution (I'm not counting The Wizard of Oz, which will receive a special anniversary DVD and Blu-ray release in November): 3 from Sony (Broken Embraces, Wild Grass, The White Ribbon), 3 from IFC (Vincere, Police, Adjective, Antichrist), 1 from Lionsgate (Precious) and 1 from Seagull Films (Room and a Half).

Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch Will Premiere at Toronto, Plus New from Neil Jordan, Ricky Gervais, Steven Soderbergh

As expected after it didn't show at Cannes, Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch will make its world premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. A Charles Darwin biopic entitled Creation (clever) with real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing Mr. and Mrs. Darwin will open the festival. Creation is directed by Jon Amiel, whose previous films range from Copycat to The Core. Other world premieres include Steven Sodebergh's second bow for 2009, The Informat!; Neil Jordan's Ondine; and Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying. All of the titles announced today, some of them repeats from Sundance and Cannes, are below.

- Creation - d. Jon Amiel - w. Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly
- Get Low - d. Aaron Schneider - w. Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek
- Max Manus - d. Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
- Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels
- The Boys Are Back - d. Scott Hicks - w. Clive Owen
- Bright Star - d. Jane Campion
- City of Life and Death - d. Lu Chuan
- Cracks - d. Jordan Scott - w. Eva Green
- Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
- The Informant! - d. Steven Soderbergh - w. Matt Damon
- The Invention of Lying - d. Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson - w. Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jason Bateman, Christopher Guest, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant
- Leaves of Grass - d. Tim Blake Nelson - w. Edward Norton, Melanie Lynskey, Susan Sarandon, Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Nelson
- London River - d. Rachid Bouchareb - w. Brenda Blethyn
- Mao's Last Dancer - d. Bruce Beresford - w. Bruce greenwood, Kyle Maclachlan, Joan Chen
- Moloch Tropical - d. Raoul Peck
- Mother - d. Bong Joon-ho
- Ondine - d. Neil Jordan - w. Colin Farrell
- Partir - d. Catherine Corsini - w. Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López
- Scheherazade Tell Me a Story - d. Yousry Nasrallah
- Solitary Man - d. Brian Koppelman, David Levien - w. Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer
- Valhalla Rising - d. Nicolas Winding Refn - w. Mads Mikkelsen, Jamie Sives
- Vengeance - d. Johnnie To
- The Vinter's Luck - d. Niki Caro - w. Jérémie Renier, Gaspard Ulliel, Vera Farmiga, Keisha Castle-Hughes

Coming (or Not Coming) in 2009: Part 1

This is the first part of a series of posts which will look at what films we can expect to see make their premiere during 2009. You can check some of my earlier posts about the Berlinale for news about films from Lukas Moodysson, Catherine Breillat, François Ozon, Rebecca Miller, Stephen Frears, Costa-Gavras, Andrzej Wajda, Hans-Christian Schmid (Requiem), Lucía Puenzo (XXY), Andrew Bujalski, Sally Potter, Chen Kaige and Theo Angelopoulos. This post will focus on French directors and productions. The run-down is admittedly auteur-driven, as no one can really predict when a film like Cristian Mungui's 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days will sneak up and floor us. As you can imagine, many of these films won't hit the US until next year, later (or never).

UPDATED: I forgot to include Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new film when I pasted this from my word processor, so scroll down for that. I've also included some more links (nearly all of which are in French).

I've mentioned my enthusiasm for Claire Denis' latest film, White Material, several times on the blog as I was told (via Facebook) that Denis was hoping to have the film edited in time for the Berlinale. It isn't playing there, so the next likely place would have to be Cannes in May, though I'd suspect it'd play out of competition as star Isabelle Huppert is the head of this year's jury. Set in Cameroon, Christopher Lambert co-stars as Huppert's husband, along with Nicolas Duvauchelle and Isaach de Bankolé, both of which have worked with Denis in the past. The film is produced by Why Not Productions in France. Denis' 35 rhums [35 Shots of Rum], which played at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, opens in France on 18 February.

Four years after Gabrielle, Patrice Chéreau (Queen Magot, L'homme blessé) returns behind the camera for Pérsecution, which he co-wrote with Anne-Louise Trividic who also co-write Gabrielle, Son frère and Intimacy with Chéreau. The film stars Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jean-Hughes Anglade, is being produced by Arte France Cinéma and should be released by mk2 before the end of the year.

Isabelle Huppert will once again team with director Benoît Jacquot (L'école de la chair [The School of Flesh]) for Villa Amalia, which opens in France on 11 March through EuropaCorp. Jean-Hughes Anglade, Xavier Beauvois and Maya Sansa (Buongiorno, notte [Good Morning Night]) also star.

I haven't been able to find any new information about Catherine Breillat's Bad Love, a remake of her own Parfait amour! starring Naomi Campbell and Christophe Rocancourt. Naturally, I will post more information as I come across it. Her latest, a fantasy La barbe bleu, premieres at the Berlinale. La barbe bleu was produced by Arte France and look for the possibility of a re-release of Tapage nocturne [Nocturnal Uproar] as it will screen at Berlin as well.

In their sixth collaboration, Catherine Deneuve will once again grace the screen for director André Téchiné in La fille du RER, which opens in France on 18 March from UGC Distribution. The film also stars Michel Blanc (who was in Téchiné's last film Les témoins [The Witnesses]), Mathieu Demy (Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda's son), Ronit Elkabetz (Late Marriage, The Band's Visit), Émilie Dequenne (Rosetta) and Nicholas Duvauchelle.

Alain Resnais' new film Les herbes folles stars Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos and Anne Consigny, all three of which were last seen in Arnaud Desplechin's Un conte de Noël, as well as André Dussollier and longtime collaborator Sabine Azéma. The film is based on the novel L'incident by Christian Gailly and should be released through Studio Canal on 21 October in France. Les herbes folles was shot by Eric Gautier, who has previously worked with Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, Patrice Chéreau and Desplechin.

Still working at 81, Jacques Rivette's new film (perhaps his last?) 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup stars Jane Birkin, who also co-starred in Rivette's L'amour par terre and La belle noiseuse, Jacques Bonnaffé (Prénom Carmen, Jeanne et le garçon formidable) and Sergio Castellitto (The Wedding Director, My Mother's Smile). Les Films du Losange are releasing the film on 16 September.

Claude Chabrol, who turns 80 next year, will unveil his latest Bellamy on 25 February through TFM Distribution after it premieres in Berlin on the 8th. Gérard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac (Faubourg 36) and Jacques Gamblin star.

In the second Coco Chanel biopic in two years (the other was made-for-television and starred Shirley Maclaine), Anne Fontaine (Nathalie...) will direct Audrey Tautou as the fashion designer. Coco avant Chanel [Coco Before Chanel], which also stars Alessandro Nivola, Emmanuelle Devos and Benoît Poelvoorde, will be out in France through Warner Brothers on 22 April. Warner will also distribute the film in the US sometime at the end of the year or 2010.

Seven years after her disturbing feature-length debut as a director Dans ma peau [In My Skin] Marina de Van's second film Ne te retourne pas stars Monica Bellucci, Sophie Marceau and Andrea Di Stefano (Before Night Falls). The film sounds a BIT like The Eyes of Laura Mars, but that's okay in my book. The film should be out sometime in May in France from Wild Bunch.

The filmmaking duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (Jeanne et le garçon formidable, Drôle de Félix [The Adventures of Felix], Ma vraie vie à Rouen [My Life on Ice], Crustacés et coquillages [Côte d'Azur]) should have their latest, L'arbre et la forêt, out sometime this year, though I wasn't able to find any dates or distributors for the film. L'arbre et la forêt stars Guy Marchand, Françoise Fabian, Sabrina Seyvecou (Paris), Yannick Renier and Pierre-Loup Rajot (Felix, À nos amours). Their last film Nés en 68 [Born in '68], which also stars Seyvecou, Renier, as well as Laetitia Casta and Yann Trégouët, will be released in the US later this year through Strand Releasing.

Julie Delpy's second foray as a director will make its international debut at the Berlinale on 9 February. The Countess, which Delpy also wrote and stars in, also features William Hurt, Anamaria Marinca, Daniel Brühl and Sebastian Blomberg. The poster above incorrectly lists Vincent Gallo, Ethan Hawke and Radha Mitchell as stars though all three dropped out of the film. No word yet on a French or US release.

Jacques Audiard's (Sur mes lèvres [Read My Lips], De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté [The Beat My Heart Skipped]) Un prophète will be released through UGC Distribution on 26 August in France. The film stars Niels Arestrup (Je, tu, il, elle, Stavisky....).

Bruno Dumont's fifth film Hadewijch will be distributed by Tadrat Films sometime in 2009, after making a likely showing at this year's Cannes Film Festival. All of his films except for Twentynine Palms have debuted at the fest, and his last film Flandres won the Grand Prix. The cast will, like Flandres, be comprised of unknowns.

After contributing to two omnibus films (Destricted and 8), Gaspar Noé's third feature film Enter the Void will be released in France from Wild Bunch over the summer, possibly after a showing at Cannes. Enter the Void, which was filmed in Montréal and Tokyo, will be Noé's first English-language film.

After disastrous results working in the US (he called Babylon A.D. "like a bad episode of 24"), Mathieu Kassovitz returns home to direct, star and co-write L'ordre et la morale. Not much is known about the project, but it seems unlikely to make it out by the end of the year.

And finally, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest film Micmacs à tire-larigot stars Dany Boon (of the regional box office sensation Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, currently being remade in the US), Dominique Pinon, André Dussollier and Yolande Moreau (the latter three were all in Amèlie). Warner will release the film in France on 28 October and in the US sometime in 2010.

More coming soon...