Movie Magazine International Blog

Moira Jean Sullivan Zar Amir Ebrahimi delivered a powerful statement at the press conference after she was awarded the, best acting award for Holy Spider , one of the most talked about films at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. The actor spoke about how she was forced into exile in 2006 by a smear campaign for an underground video tape where she was proclaimed to be an actor. She said she had been "saved by cinema". In Holy Spider she plays a journalist fighting for social justice for slain sex workers. " This film is about women , it's about their bodies, it's a movie full of faces, hair, hands, feet, breasts, sex -- everything that is impossible to show in Iran". The film is inspired by the true story of a working class man who killed prostitutes in the early 2000s and became known as the "Spider Killer". "Holy Spider" suggests there was little official pressure to catch the murderer, who ends up a hero among the religious right. ...

By Moira Jean Sullivan It was perplexing to listen to Ruben Östlund accept his second Palme d’Or. As he said at the press conference after the closing ceremony, it could be a mistake the first time, but the second time it is is probably not. Not everyone agreed it was the best film this year nor one of the films expected to win. However, the entire sound team - Andreas Franck, Bent Holm, Jacob Ilgner and Jonas Rudels won the Vulcan award - Prix Vulcain de l’Artiste Technicien - awarded by the Superior Technical Commission of Image and Sound. Östlund latest films such as The Square (2017) embrace the absurdity of politics by a director from a multi-party social democratic country. Sweden's has shifted from left to right in the past few years ending years of neutrality to be a part of NATO. Currently the leading party is the Social Democrats but with only a third of the seats , with a third shared by the Conservatives (Moderaterna) and a third by the problematic and alarming ...

By Moira Jean Sullivan Baz Luhrmann’s highly anticipated Elvis that debuted at Cannes in May is an enticing seductive film by an innovative film artist. Unfortunately, the film has more to do  with Tom Hank’s role as Elvis’s business manager Tom Parker than Elvis. Luhrmann controls the camera and editing in making Parker the main attraction with this narrative about the man who claimed he "made" Elvis. Putting Hanks in almost every scene is a major flaw. The film begins with the death of Parker and a voice over that this is his story. Could this be atonement for Elvis that this business manager robbed the artist of his life and true artistry? Closeups, cutaways, and reactions of this corpulent, oily gambler make one incredulously wonder how Elvis let him  have so much control over him. The film shows that Elvis knew about this hypnotic con man and tried to stop him. As a magnificently talented man he ironically left his career to be managed by a megalomaniac. The emph...

The Festival de Cannes Quinzaine des réalisateurs - Directors' Fortnight premiere of Maria Schneider, 1983 by Elisabeth Subrin was held May 26 featuring actor Manal Issa, 31, Aïssa Maïga, producer actor and director, 47 and Isabel Sandoval, Filipino filmmaker, 40. The film shot in 16mm is a recreation of a 1983 segment from the documentary series Cinémas Cinéma where Schneider is interviewed by producer Anne Andreu. Together with other filmmakers, Subrin's said that her interest in Maria Schneider began when she was asked to work on an unpublished screenplay for Antonioni's film Technically Sweet in 2008.  It was never made and Antonioni instead made The Passenger (1983) with Maria Schneider and Nicholson. In 2014 Subrin started a blog dedicated to Maria Schneider called Who Cares About Actresses?. The year before media interest was rekindled in Maria Schneider's experience on the set of Last Tango in Paris ( 1972 ) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The #METOO m...

By Moira Sullivan The 75th Cannes Film Festival may not rival last year's event with films selected after the worst of the pandemic but its virtues like all Cannes festivals are evident. The lineup of 22 films features five films by women, a slight step up after the heavy activism of filmmakers and actors in 2018 festival in side bars with seminars and meetings: Claire Denis, Kelly Reichardt, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and later additions Leonor Serraille with Un Petit Frère and Charlotte Vandermeersch, co-director of The Eight Mountains ". Since 2015 there has been a visible #METOO presence and supporters of gender equality such as Agnès Varda, Ava DuVernay, and Cate Blanchett - president of Cannes Jury in 2018. When asked about this Blanchett answered: “A few years ago there were only two, and I know the selection committee has more women on board than in previous years, which will obviously change the lens through which the films are chosen. But these things are not go...

By Moira Jean Sullivan The Northman is a highly crafted new film by US director Robert Eggers written by Icelandic author Sjón. The film is steeped in Old Norse mythology and set in 10th century Iceland. Old Norse later developed into the dialects of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The set design and historical setting of the film was meticulously researched with a team of experts. The film uses FMX sequences such as an ongoing erupting volcano with naked Viking duels on molten lava. The Viking prince, Young Amleth (Stellan Skarsgard) witnesses his father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) killed and his mother Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) carried off by his uncle Fjölnir -The Brotherless (Claes Bang). Amlet spends several years planning to revenge these deeds. He consults with a Seeress (Björk dressed in a woven coarse barley headdress, with cowrie shells and chicken feet) and is aided by mystical fairies and creatures such as ravens put on his path. Viking seeresses worked w...

By Moira Jean Sullivan ANAÏS IN LOVE by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet is a French romantic comedy about Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier), a 35 year old woman who on the practical side of life is able to talk her way through not paying her rent, or lodging, or showing up at college or finishing her thesis on passion. Such folly is on the surface of a clever and vibrant young woman who has unfulfilling relationships with a young man she shares an apartment with and Daniel, a stingy older married man (Denis Podalydès) she is having an affair with. But she falls in love with his wife (Valeria Bruni Tedesci) that she has never met who is a writer. She rents out her apartment to a Korean couple and takes off for a writing seminar to meet Emilie. During this time Daniel drives to the seminar for an unarranged meeting with his wife. At a film screening for the seminar, Elie has chosen John Cassavetes Opening Night (1971) with Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara –a film about a writer who ironically...