For the past few weeks, I’ve been attending screenings and watching screeners from the Los Angeles Film Festival, and my summary of most of the eighteen films I’ve seen has been posted at MUBI today.
Also, the new issue of Film Comment is coming out, and it names me as two of the Top Film Criticism [...]
Categories: Film festival · Site news
By Robert Koehler
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The lobby of Downtown Independent, where the first New Media film festival played Friday through Sunday, June 11-13. The festival is one of the first to be located purely at Downtown Independent, 251 S. Main St., located on the west side of Main between 2nd and 3rd and [...]
Categories: Film festival
By Robert Koehler
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Apichatpong approximately 72 hours before he won the Palme d’Or. He had just arrived in Cannes from turmoil in Bangkok, as a group of us greeted him at the Princess Stephanie Hotel (also home to the premiere screenings of films in the Quinzaine). He presented his producers [...]
Categories: Film festival
By Robert Koehler
You would have to go back to either 1999–when the Dardennes won for Rosetta–or 1997–when Abbas Kiarostami won for Taste of Cherry in a tie with Imamura Shohei for The Eel and when Tim Burton was a member of the jury–to find a Palme d’Or winner quite as satisfying and unconventional as tonight’s [...]
Categories: Commentary · Film festival
By Robert Koehler
Less than an hour before the announcement of the Palme and other prizes, rumors are swirling over possible winners based on sightings of who’s in Cannes….and who’s not.
In the latter category, count Mike Leigh, which makes Another Year unlikely to win any prizes. Based on who has returned or stayed in Cannes, look [...]
Categories: Commentary · Film festival
Robert Koehler submitted his favorite titles to Fotogramas‘ Manu Yáñez:
Competition:
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Poetry
Des Hommes et des dieux
Out of Competition:
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaucescu
Carlos (based on viewing the first 100 minutes)
Special Screenings:
Chantrapas
Un Certain Regard:
The Strange Case of Angelica
Tuesday, After Christmas
Aurora
I Wish I Knew
Film Socialisme
Quinzaine:
Le Quattro Volte
Todos vós sodes capitáns
Semaine:
Belle épine
Rubber
ACID:
Cuchillo de Palo [...]
Categories: Film festival
By Robert Koehler
Jean-Luc Godard (and his Les Inrocks interview) marked the starting point for this year’s Cannes blogging, partly because I anticipated that his Film Socialisme would certainly be one of the major films at the festival. It is that, and more, since the film’s impact will long outlast the mere week and a half [...]
Categories: Film festival · Film review
By Robert Koehler
German director Christoph Hochhausler–whose name Thierry Fremaux struggled with in the introduction seen here–disappoints with his Un Certain Regard film, Under the City. It’s the first misstep in one of the most interesting careers among those filmmakers which have been (correctly in Hochhausler’s case) associated with the Berlin School. But Under the City [...]
Categories: Film festival
By Robert Koehler
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A view of the Palais red stairs before the madness begins on day three.
The cast and crew of Cristi Puiu’s Aurora assembles on the Debussy stage with Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux. (Very tiny, for sure; this iPhone lacks telephoto.) Aurora isn’t in the black comic vein [...]
Categories: Film festival
By Robert Koehler
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Before I check out of the Grand Hotel, I look out the northern view from my room’s veranda balcony. The rain has faded away…
View from the balcony level, looking south to the sea, from the Grand Palais prior to the 8:30am screening of Wang Xiaoshuai’s Chongqing Blues, [...]
Categories: Film festival