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CONTENTS Page
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Editorial
5-8
Danny Collins An aging rock star decides to change his life when he discovers a 40-year-old letter written to him by John Lennon.
9-12
Samba An immigrant from Senegal arrives in France looking for work. He is helped by a charity worker who has suffered a burn-out from being a senior executive.
13-16
A Fuller Life A documentary on the director Samuel Fuller in which his friends and admirers read from his memoirs.
17-20
The Connection A French police magistrate spends years trying to take down one of the country's most powerful drug rings.
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Close-Up on Al Pacino
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Film Fest Follower-Cannes
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Coming Soon
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Extras DVD OF THE MONTH
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Danny Collins Photo Credits:
Danny Collins. 1.5.7.8.32. Entertainment One. Samba. 9.11.12. Koch Media A Fuller Life. 13.15.16. Contemporary Films. The Connection. 17.19.20. Altitude Film Distribution/ Picturehouse Entertainment.
Acknowledgements: Movies by Mills would like to thank the following for their help and assistance: Virun Kanish. Koch Media. Christelle Randall. Organic-Publicity. www.moviesbymills.com
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EDITORIAL Al Pacino heads an enviable cast in his latest film Danny Collins, a film that zooms to the top of this year's feelgood films. Full review inside plus a Close-Up on the star. There are reviews of the French thriller La French (The Connection) starring Jean Dujardin the star of the wonderful The Artist, and reviews of Samba and the documentary A Fuller Life on the director Samuel Fuller, a warm tribute to the maverick filmmaker by his daughter. We are of course at the start of a very busy film festival season with Tribeca just finishing to make way for Cannes, Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary, Melbourne, Sydney, Venice, San Sebastian, Toronto, Buzan, Mar Del Plata, Tacoma, Rome, and of course London which is held in October. There is also the Sci-Fi Film Festival which opens this month and MbM will recommending the best films to see at that. But of course - the festival of festivals is Cannes which has all the glitz and gloss of celebrities walking the red carpet to promote their latest films. This year there will be Woody Allen, Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Michael Caine, Paul Dano, Tom Hardy, Natalie Portman, Tim Robbins, Colin Farrell, Catherine Deneuve, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Tim Roth, Lea Seydoux, Isabelle Huppert, Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Watts, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Charlise Theron, Olga Kurylenko...all are expected to be there unless film commitments stop them. To see the list of films that these stars will be promoting just go to our feature of Film Fest Follower which highlights the films which MbM recommends seeing at Cannes or for you to note when they are screened at your arthouse cinema. Plus there is the regular feature of Extras which directs you to the film The Theory of Everything. Enjoy the read.
Brian Mills
Paul Ridler
Magazine Editor
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Magazine Designer
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DANNY COLLINS
*
Directed by Dan Fogelman. Starring: Al Pacino. Annette Bening.Christopher Plummer. Bobby Cannavale.Jennifer Garner. Gabrielle Eisenberg. Do you remember the interview you did for Time Magazine? John Lennon read it and he wrote you a letter in 1971. Can you believe it? "Dear Danny Collins. Stay true to yourself. Stay true to your music. My phone number is below. We can meet up." Whoo-Ah...Pacino's back and in great form as an fading rock-star who is handed a letter by his old friend and manager, Frank Grubman (Christopher Plummer). John Lennon's letter changes Danny Collins's life. He cancels his tour and decides to reconnect with the people he loves and has neglected, like the son he has never seen, Tom Connelly (Bobby Cannavale). It also inspires him to start writing songs again and quit performing the same toxic material he has been singing for the last thirty years to the same ageing fans that don't want him to change. Suddenly the huge house, expensive car, young fiancĂŠ, the alcohol, the cocaine...even the music..seems meaningless to him; for he recognizes what he has become: wealthy, famous and miserable. Danny Collins hits the road to redemption trying to fix everything that he wished he could have fixed in the past. He moves into the Hilton Woodcliff Lake in New Jersey, to be near his estranged son, the result of a one-night stand 40 years ago. Tom was raised by his single mother who has since died of cancer and when Danny shows up he unsurprisingly does not want anything to do with him. But Tom's pregnant wife Samantha Leigh (Jennifer Garner) and her daughter Hope (Giselle Eisenberg)who has ADHD and is a talkative cutie, are curious about this stranger but not enough to accept his generosity. www.moviesbymills.com
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While at the Hilton, Danny flirts with the manager Mary Sinclair (Annette Bening) pestering her for a dinner date which she repeatedly refuses to accept. Danny starts composing again and books a gig in the small lounge of the hotel to try out his new songs. And as for his generous overtures to his son and wife, they finally succumb when an enormous tour bus pulls up to take them to a speciality school in Manhattan with a multiyear waiting list. Money doesn't buy redemption, I'm still going to hell, so everybody wins, says Danny. At the end there is a poignant scene when Danny and Tom are awaiting medical results...which is emotionally challenging. Added to the rich mix of a perfect cast topped by Al Pacino who was the first and only choice of Dan Fogelman to play Danny, there are the Lennon songs which are a finishing coat of gloss to preserve the nostalgia of it all. Imagine being in the audience at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles when Dan Fogelman walks on during the intermission of the show Chicago and tells them that Al Pacino will be coming on as the character Danny Collins which he is playing in the film and will be singing to them. How magical is that. If you want a piece of that magic then you need to get down to your favourite cinema to watch this most heart warming film and treasure the second best thing of having Al Pacino walk out on stage, but it will feel like it when you see the aforementioned moment. The continually criss-cross banter between Danny and Mary is great to watch. What I like about you is that you never give up. Some dinners are worth fighting for. Danny Collins is a movie that is worth fighting for to see as is its message that it is never too late to correct your life and reconnect with your loved ones. *Original title was Imagine
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Al Pacino and Christopher Plummer in Danny Collins
Giselle Eisenberg and Jennifer Garner in Danny Collins
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Annette Bening in Danny Collins
Zuleikha Robinson and Christopher Plummer in Danny Collins 8
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SAMBA Directed by Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakache. Starring: Omar Sy. Charlotte Gainsbourg. Tahar Rahim. Izia Higelin. Here's a word of advice. Keep your distance. Or it'll hurt if they're sent back. The advice is given to Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) by Manu (Izia Higelin, a fellow charity worker at the immigration centre, who is totally invested in her job in helping the undocumented immigrants and knows what it is like to get too close because you sense that she has been there herself.
The focus of the story is on Samba Cisse (Omar Sy) who came to France 10 years ago from Senegal. He has been working at various jobs and under different identities to avoid the authorities. Alice has suffered burnout as a senior executive and seeks solace in charity work. Fate draws Samba and Alice together, both struggling to improve their lives, with Samba seeking charity to help get the papers he needs that will allow him to stay in the country he now calls home. Samba is directed by the team behind box office sensation The Intouchables, which starred Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy. There is a similarity of drawing two opposites together in both storylines: a handicapped millionaire and a street smart ex-con caretaker in the former and an illegal immigrant and a senior executive in the latter. Toledano and Nakache are once again tackling a sombre subject with humour and lightness, and from its opening credits upbeat dance sequence they quickly want to remind us of this feel-good theme that permeates the narrative throughout the film. It is undoubtedly its strongest scenes, but they also deliberately avoid using Omar Sy to reprise his dancing skills from The Intouchables but instead have him sit them out and appear quite shy and uncomfortable when he is encouraged to dance. The star turn is left to Samba's friend Wilson played by Tahar Rahim to provide both the humour and dancing expertise - and he practically steals the film in doing so. Directors Toledano and Nakache used Rahim as he really is in real life, happy-go-lucky, laughing a lot, not at all like the serious dramatic parts we have come to expect of him. For the scene on the scaffolding, undressing in front of the office girls and dancing the samba while he is meant to be helping Samba clean windows is hilarious, but he had to take dance lessons to do it. Any actor relishes the chance to show a totally different side to themselves and this film definitely does that. Tahar Rahim will be seen again in a comical role in his next film when he plays a thief in the guise of Santa Claus. When he first read the script of Samba, he immediately saw a powerful story that would reconcile art-house
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and popular cinema, realism and humour. There was a certain risk factor in the directors taking on such a subject but sharing the risk thrilled him. Did he know anything about the lives of undocumented immigrants? When I arrived in Paris, I met a lot of them. We had the same hellish jobs: I burned DVDs, worked in a kitchen. I washed windows as a teenager and that's how I made my pocket money. Toledano and Nakache said they used you as you are in real life as the basis for Wilson, this Algerian who pretends to be Brazilian... Wilson and I have a lot of things in common. In real life, I laugh a lot more than I do in the movies I've done. I like to make things light. They're dark enough as it is! When I first read the script, I was happy to see that my character was the opposite of what I'm used to acting. And closer to me. Omar Sy: The idea of a project about an undocumented worker came up during "The Intouchables" But Eric et Olivier didn't know how to treat it until they happened upon Delphine Coulins book. Till then, the project had just been notes. Their poetry consists of telling things with a lightness of touch. In preparing for the role of Samba, Omar watched La Pirogue, which tracks the journey of a group of Senegalese trying to reach Spain with another group of Guinean immigrants. He wanted to understand the motivations of these people who set off without ever being sure they'll make it to where they're heading. For Omar Sy, he saw Samba as a brave and dignified guy who has to stay on his feet and keep on moving ahead. If he doesn't, all the people who depend on him - that is his family in Africa - will fall with him. When I compare Samba's life with mine, I realize the gulf separating us. These guys put their lives at risk the second they cross a border. I travel with a passport. I have a visa for the United States, which allows me to work there. I can walk around wherever I want and the only question I ask myself when I get off the plane is whether my car will be there to pick me up. Charlotte Gainsbourg's character Alice was reinvented for the film from the narrator in the book and the actress related to her characteristics: I like her awkwardness, her clumsiness, the way she lives in a sort of a blur. I used a certain distance I sometimes have in life. She is not fuelled with the desire to help undocumented workers. She is a bit lost in this world, and I thought that showing her confusion would be good. Alice is obsessed with herself, her physical weakness, her problems, the pills she has to take. Her breakdown has desensitized her. She keeps making awkward mistakes. I wanted to exaggerate this, to make her funny. There is a scene with Samba when Alice goes totally berserk after he loses it after she tells him he can't ask to regularize his situation for another year. Again, Charlotte had to use a lot of herself to find that anger and she found acting out that scene a pleasure. During the shoot, Charlotte received news that her sister had died and she left the film for a bit. Samba is a serious subject that works only because the directors realize the importance of humour and music to lighten the load. It is not in the same league as The Untouchables but at times it comes close.
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Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Izia Higelin in Samba
Omar Sy and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Samba
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Tahar Rahim and Omar Sy in Samba
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Tahar Rahim in Samba 12
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A FULLER LIFE * Spoiler Alert *
Directed by Samantha Fuller Featuring: James Franco. Jennifer Beals. Bill Duke. James Toback. Kelly Ward. Perry Lang. Robert Carradine. Mark Hamill. Joe Dante. Tim Roth. Wim Wenders. Monte Hellman. Buck Henry. Constance Towers. William Friedkin. It was like holding a 2-year-old sĂŠance, trying to channel my father's spirit into the film. I don't know how the Coppola or Cassavetes kids feel when they do their movies, but I could hear my father's voice when I was working, saying "Speed it up!" and "Emotion!" In the end, I feel like I've succeeded Samuel Fuller was the ultimate factotum: copyboy, journalist, novelist, cartoonist, adventurer, traveller, photographer, volunteer, corporal, war hero, survivor, documentarian, writer, film director... cigar smoker. This lovingly and inspiringly made documentary is by Sam's daughter Samantha. It reconstructs his life, helped by Samantha finding a box under his desk which contained 100 unlabelled reels of 16mm film. She spent the next year viewing it. There were location scouts from his studio films, home movies; including a rodeo party at John Ford's ranch and a deep sea fishing trip with his muse Constance Towers...and footage he shot during World War II when he served in the infantry. Most of this is included in the film. There are many memorable vignettes that continued replaying after seeing the movie: scene of a woman in Italy recounting to a sceptical soldier that she had been raped and physically mutilated by a Nazi, and then taking off her top to reveal her scarred breasts.
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The other scene showed the one-time when Fuller was given carte blance to film what he wanted to by Darryl F Zanuck, the only time when a Hollywood studio boss understood him and allowed him to make a film his way. It resulted in him making Fixed Bayonets and Pickup on South Street, the latter a film noir which gave Richard Widmark one of the best roles of his career. Widmark played Skip McCoy, a small-time thief who one day lifts a strip of microfilm, bearing confidential U.S. secrets, from the pocketbook of an unsuspecting Candy (Jean Peters). Skip and Candy are tailed by manipulating Feds and the unwitting courier's communist puppeteers, and they find themselves in a precarious gambit pitting greed against redemption. The film is packed with Fuller's trademark rawness and cutthroat dialogue. Every word in the film is Samuel Fuller's as his daughter directed it in a way that has 12 of his admirers reading from his award-winning autobiography, "A Third Face." All of these readings take place in her father's office, known as 'the shack'; in fact, this book laden room is very much a character itself, where every idea was formed into a story by the cigar-chewing maverick as he tapped the keys on his trusty-old Royal typewriter. Bulging bookshelves are lined with scripts, figments of his wild imagination which became feature films, maps, plaques, film posters, filing cabinets laden with articles and pictures, research for future projects, with some labelled The Red Helmet, Angel City or by country: Korea, France, Germany, plus a notice that reads: JFK NEHRU AGREEMENT TO DISAGREE The one thing which unfortunately and surprisingly, considering Samuel Fuller's influence on the French nouvelle vague, was missing from this otherwise excellent documentary, is the clip from Jean Luc Godard's classic Pierrot le Fou. We eavesdrop on an advertising party where everyone is speaking like the copy that they would write for magazine ads and billboards. But suddenly the camera catches an odd man out, a film director - it is Samuel Fuller playing himself. He is talking about being in Paris to make an action movie. His presence and language, and the movie he is planning to make, seem more authentic than the jabbering artificiality of the partygoers. Godard shot this one scene in colour, while the others are in tinted monochrome. Samuel Fuller stands out as a misfit, a one-off, a maverick, which is exactly what he was. It would have made a fitting epitaph to a great film director. 14
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Wim Wenders
James Franco
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Constance Towers
Tim Roth 16
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THE CONNECTION
Directed by Cedric Jimenez Starring: Jean Dujardin. Gilles Lelouche. Celine Sallette. *Benoit Magimel. *Spoiler Alert Latest roundup in series of arrests led by Pierre Michel, whose name is on everyone's lips. The name Pierre Michel will probably mean nothing to the majority of us but 'Popeye' Doyle just might and not too many studiomade cobwebs will need to be brushed away to recall William Friedkin's brilliant thriller The French Connection with Gene Hackman as the New York City police detective assigned to intercept a huge heroin shipment organised by Marseille entrepreneur Charnier played by Fernando Rey. The Euro side of The French Connection is examined in The Connection aka La French. Jean Dujardin stars as Pierre Michel, a relentlessly dedicated magistrate reassigned from Metz to the southern port city of Marseille, where Gaetan Zampa (Gilles Lelouche) a mafia mobster rules the city by controlling everyone, including the police force, by intimidation and blatantly practices his evil in broad daylight without being lawfully challenged. Michel thrusts into this sinister scenario by at first dispensing blank search warrants and arresting Zampa's junior henchmen for minor infractions that hopefully he will notice that someone is watching, but it barely rattles his cage. Before long Michel realises that to make a mark he will need to change his methods if he is to break this ruthless international drug syndicate. He decides to pitch criminal rivals against each other, one of these being Le Fou, Crazy Horse (Benoit Magimel). He is walking a blood-soaked path bordered by skeletons but Michel www.moviesbymills.com
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is determined to walk it and succeed in bringing Zampa to justice even at the cost of his own life. Producer Alain Goldman gambled on using a first-time director for this project because Cedric Jimez came to him about his view of Marseille and the brief pitch of the script and I realised it was a personal film and as a result it would be felt as much more authentic by audiences than the average crime thriller. One point that critics of the film have raised is why did they bother to show Michel and Zampa's respective families? Doesn't that slow the story and divert from the action? How can that serve or forward the narrative? Goldman explains that both Michel and Zampa have friends and are very attached to their families. We find similarities in the way they interact with their loved ones, even if they're different men. These family relationships give the film a human dimension. We are not confined to the thriller genre. Compared to the US crime thrillers of Coppola and Scorcese, and Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time in America, there is very little violence in the film. They are just telling the story of this judge who sacrificed himself to dismantle the drug ring in Marseille. The key to the film gripping its audience is in its casting of Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche as the hero and villain. The chemistry between these two actors is built on their working relationship on Guillaume Canet's Les Petits Mouchoirs (Little White Lies)which centres on the character Ludo played by Dujardin who has a near fatal bike crash which results in the accident revealing the lies that his friends have been telling themselves. Lellouche plays his friend Eric. The other film they were teamed in was The Players, an omnibus of short stories in which both actors played seven different characters in tales about infidelities. The actor *Benoit Magimel, also in Little White Lies, is excellent as a rival gangster. The Connection falls far short of many of these actors previous films but as a thriller the story is well told and is worth a cinemagoers' time and attention.
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Jean Dujardin
in The Connection.
Gilles Lellouche in The Connection.
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Jean Dujardin and Guillaume Gouix in The Connection.
Jean Dujardin and Guilaume Gouix in The Connection. 20
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CLOSE UP AL PACINO
(DANNY COLLINS) We find Danny Collins at the end of the line really. He starts to connect to other things like the son he has never seen. It's the life of the play, the budding romantic thing. It really just touched me, it moved me. Al Pacino is an actor of the highest calibre on stage, film, and TV. His performance in Danny Collins shows that he is still willing to accept a challenge when someone like director Dan Fogelman writes a part with him in mind to play the character. It is the second time in his long career that a director wanted him and no one else for a part; Frances Coppola held out against Paramount for Pacino to play Michael Corleone for The Godfather, a role which established his arrival as a star and which he reprised in the sequels in 1974 and 1990. He grew up in New York City's South Bronx, attended the School of Performing Arts until the age of 17, when he moved to study acting first at the Harlem Berghof Studio and later at the legendary Actors Studio, with mentor Lee Strasberg. Between 1963 and 1969 Pacino honed his craft working in numerous theatrical productions including William Saroyan's Hello Out There, his Off Broadway debut in 1963; Why Is a Crooked Letter in 1966, for which he won an Obie Award. His Broadway debut Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? won him his first Tony Award. He continued working onstage during the 1970s and 80s. As recently as 2013 Pacino appeared on Broadway in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, repeating the role he played in the film, opposite Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin and Ed Harris. Pacino's role as Ricky Roma got him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. And of course it is Pacino's rich filmography that most people remember him. He got his first screen lead in only his second film Panic in Needle Park, written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. The following year Mario Puzo's mafia bestseller The Godfather was successfully adapted for www.moviesbymills.com
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the screen and Pacino was offered a role he couldn't refuse. A title role in Serpico won him his second Academy Award nomination and a further two nominations for The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon followed.
Scarface surfaced in 1983. You need me, I'm the bad guy, says Montana. Directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone it is memorably violent, bloody and explicitly expletive. The only let-up is when the end titles hit the screen, but Pacino is impressive as the moral less mobster. After the third part of The Godfather Part III, Al delivered a triple deck of winners: Frankie and Johnny a romantic excursion for him as a cook opposite Michelle Pfeiffer as a waitress. Quite charming in its own way. We were a couple before Frankie and Johnny the song. Didn't they end up killing each other? She killed him, so you got the edge there. Next up came Glengarry Glen Ross. A brilliant expose of pressure selling with acting at his best. They stole the leads, they stole the phone..ahh. And Pacino steals your attention. It was his next role as blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman that brought him his first Academy Award for Best Actor. An extraordinary performance. Are you blind? Of course not. Then why do you keep grabbing my goddamn arm? I take your arm. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. How would you know? You've been watching MTV all your life.
Heat, The Insider and Any Given Sunday are other must-sees in Al Pacino's filmography as is Danny Collins, a treat for all his fans but also all students of acting watch...watch...a master at work.
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FILM FEST FOLLOWER CANNES May 2015 MbM Recommends
Opening Film LA TETE HAUTE Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot Starring: Catherine Deneuve. Benoit Magimel. Sara Forester. Rod Paradot. The experience of a juvenile delinquent named Maloney from ages 6 to 18 with Deneuve playing a judge trying to intervene. It is Deneuve's second collaboration with Bercot.
In Competition CAROL Directed by Todd Haynes Starring: Rooney Mara. Cate Blanchett. Kyle Chandler. Sarah Paulson. Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. A young woman finds herself increasingly attracted to an older woman.
CHRONIC Directed by Michael Franco Starring: Tim Roth. Bitsie Tulloch. It tracks a depressed nurse practitioner who assists terminally ill patients and tries to reconnect with the family he abandoned. Tulloch plays Lidia, whose father is played by Michael Cristofer.
THE LOBSTER Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring: Colin Farrell. Lea Seydoux. Rachel Weisz. Ben Whishaw. In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods.
LOUDER THAN BOMBS Directed by Joachim Trier Starring: Jesse Eisenberg. Rachel Brosnahan. Amy Ryan. Gabriel Byrne. Isabelle Huppert. First Norwegian film to be featured in main competition at Cannes since 1979.
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MARGUERITE ET JULIEN Directed by Valerie Donzelli Starring: Anais Demouster. Jeremie Elkaim. Aurelia Petit. The son and daughter of Lord of Tourlaville, love with a tender love since childhood, but growing up, their love turns into a consuming passion. Their adventures scandalise society that is chasing them. Unable to resist their feelings, they must flee...
MIA MADRE Directed by Nanni Moretti Starring: Margherita Buy. John Turturro. Nanni Moreti. Gulia Lazzarini. The story is about Margherita (Margherita Buy)a director trying to complete a movie set in the contemporary scenario of economic crisis, focused on the loss of jobs in an Italian factory after the purchase of the compound from a USA investor. But Margherita cannot concentrate on the movie, as her old mother Ada(Giulia Lazzarini) is dying in hospital. There is a difference in the telling of the main story of the death of the mother which is told in a solemn and slow way, and the story in the story - the director's film - whose dialogue is formulaic and simple. Most of us can relate to the feeling of losing our mother at some point in our lives - it never goes away. So this film hits a nerve as it crosses the human boundaries and love.
THE SEA OF TREES Directed by Gus Van Sant Starring: Matthew McConaughey. Naomi Watts. Ken Watanabi. A suicidal American, Arthur Brennan (Matthew McConaughey) befriends a Japanese man, Takumi Nakamura (Ken Watanabi) lost in a forest near Mt Fuji and the two of them search for a way out.
SICARIO (Hitman) Directed by Denis Villeneuve Starring: Emily Blunt. Josh Brolin. Jon Bernthol. Benicio del Toro. A young FBI agent, Kate Macy (Emily Blunt)joins a secret CIA operation to take down a Mexican cartel boss, Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit. Josh Brolin plays CIA officer. Director Denis Villeneuve describes his film as a 'strange animal' and the best film he has ever made.
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YOUTH Directed by *Paolo Sorrentino Starring: Rachel Weisz. Paul Dano. Michael Caine. Fred and Mick, two old friends, are on vacation in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children's confused lives, Micks enthusiastic young writers, and the other guests. While Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film. Fred has no intention of resuming his musical career. But someone wants at all costs to hear him conduct again. * Much is expected of Sorrentino's latest film, after the critical success of last year's The Great Beauty, which scooped the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. This is his first film in English.
Out of Competition IRRATIONAL MAN Directed by Woody Allen Starring: Joaquin Phoenix. Emma Stone. Parker Posey. Jamie Blackley. On a small town college campus, Abe(Phoenix) a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student, an actress (Stone).
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Directed by George Miller Starring: Tom Hardy. Charlise Theron. Nicolas Hoult. Zoe Kravitz. In a post-apocalyptic world, in which people fight to the death, Max teams up with a mysterious woman, Furiousa, to survive.
Un Certain Regard MARYLAND Directed by Alice Winocour Starring: Matthias Schoenaerts. Diane Kruger. The film tracks an ex-soldier with PTSD who is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.
CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Starring: Banlop Lomnoi. Jenjira Pongpas. A lonesome middle-aged housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance.
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Directors'Fortnight IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN Directed by Philippe Garrel Starring: Stanislas Merhar. Clotilde Courau. Lena Paugam. Pierre and Manon make low-budget documentaries and live off odd jobs. When Pierre meets a young trainee, Elizabeth, she becomes his mistress. But Pierre doesn't want to leave Manon. He wants to keep both women. Elizabeth discovers that Manon has a lover, and tells Pierre. Pierre returns to Manon, the woman he truly loves. Phillipe Garrel delivers a new variation on the theme of romantic passion.
A PERFECT DAY Directed by Fernando de Aranoa Starring: Olga Kurylenko. Benicio del Toro. Tim Robbins. Five aid workers are given the simple task of getting a dead body out of a well that's used for drinking water. But in times of war, even the easiest jobs are needlessly complicated.
SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME Directed by Chloe Zhao Starring: John Reddy. Jashaun St. John. A low-key portrait of life on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation exploring the bond between a brother and his younger sister who find themselves on separate paths.
Midnight Screenings AMY Directed by Asif Kapadia A documentary on the late singer/songwriter, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2011. The director also made the excellent documentary on the Formula One Racing Driver - Ayrton Senna.
LOVE Directed by Gaspar Noe A sexually explicit love triangle. A boy and a girl and another girl. It is a love story which celebrates sex in a joyful way.
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Special Screenings A STORY OF LOVE AND DARKNESS Directed by Natalie Portman Starring: Natalie Portman. Makram Khoury. A drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, writer, journalist and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palastinian conflict.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM ICE AND THE SKY
Directed by Luc Jacquet In this documentary Luc Jacquet discusses the scientific discoveries of Claude Lorius who left in 1957 to study the Antarctic ice. In 1965 he was the first to be concerned by global warming and its consequences for the planet. Today, aged 82, he continues to look at the future with hope. The film is a hymn to save the planet.
CANNES CLASSICS Documentaries about cinema HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT Directed by Kent Jones DEPARDIEU GRANDEUR NATURE Directed by Richard Melloul STEVE McQUEEN: THE MAN & LE MANS Directed by Gabriel Clarke & John McKenna BY SIDNEY LUMET Directed by Nancy Buirski HAROLD and LILIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY Directed by Daniel Raim INGRID BERGMAN, IN HER OWN WORDS Directed by Stig Bjorkman THE GOLDEN PALM'S LEGEND Directed by Alexis Veller www.moviesbymills.com
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Centennial Orson Welles CITIZEN KANE Directed by Orson Welles THE THIRD MAN Directed by Carol Reed THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI Directed by Orson Welles ORSON WELLES, AUTOPSIE D'UNE LEGENDE Directed by Elisabeth Kapnist THIS IS ORSON WELLES Directed by Clara & Julia Kuperberg
An evening with Barbet Schroeder MORE Directed by Barbet Schroeder AMNESIA Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Tribute to Manoel de Oliveira VISTA OU MEMORIAS E CONFISSOES Directed by Manoel de Oliveira
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Cannes Classics at the Cinema de la Plage RAN Directed by Akira Kurosawa HIBERNATUS Directed by Edouard Molinaro LE GRAND BLOND AVEC UNE CHAUSSURE NOIRE Directed by Yves Robert JURAISSIC PARK 3D Directed by Steven Spielberg IVAN THE TERRIBLE 1 and 2 Directed by Sergei Eisenstein THE TERMINATOR Directed by James Cameron THE USUAL SUSPECTS Directed by Bryan Singer HOTEL DU NORD Directed by Marcel Carne JOE HILL Directed by Bo Widerberg RABID DOGS Directed by Eric Hannezo will also screen at the Cinema de la Plage for its world premiere.
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COMING SOON JUNE – AUGUST
HERE IS THE RUNDOWN OF THE FILMS THAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO GET EXCITED ABOUT OVER THE NEXT THREE MONTHS.
SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAY Directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Stars: Jennifer Aniston.Imogen Potts. Owen Wilson. Kathryn Hahn. Rhys Ifans. Will Forte. A marred Broadway director falls for a prostitute turned-actress and works to help her advance her career. UK RELEASE JUNE 26
SLOW WEST Directed by John MacLean Stars: Michael Fassbender. Ben Mendelsohn. Rory McCann. It follows a 16-year old boy on a journey across 19th century frontier America in search of the woman he loves, while accompanied by a mysterious traveller named Silas. UK RELEASE JUNE 26
THE THIRD MAN Directed by Carol Reed Stars: Orson Welles. Joseph Cotten. Alida Valli. Trevor Howard. Celebrating the centenary of Orson Welles's death, one of the greatest films of all-time has been re-issued. Holly Martins (Cotten) arrives in Vienna looking for his friend Harry Lime (Welles) only to learn he died in an accident. While stumbling through the black market zones he discovers Harry is still alive - now a murderous racketeer hiding in the doorways and sewers of the bombed-out city. UK RELEASE JUNE 26
MAGGIE Directed by Henry Hobson Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Abigail Breslin. A teenage girl in the Midwest becomes infected by an outbreak of a disease that slowly turns the infected into cannibalistic zombies. During the transformation her loving father stays with her. UK RELEASE July 17
MANGLEHORN Directed by David Gordon Green Stars: Al Pacino. Holly Hunter. Chris Messina.
A strange lonely man tries to come to terms with a past crime that cost him the love of his life. UK RELEASE AUGUST 7 30
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EXTRAS DVD OF THE MONTH
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Directed by James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne. Felicity Jones. Harry Lloyd. Emily Watson. David Thewlis.
FILM **** An outstanding film with Eddie Redmayne as the extraordinary physicist Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Mary. The film is based on Jane Hawking's memoirs of her life with her husband. Eddie Redmayne won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking.
EXTRAS None announced at time of publication.
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