CONTENTS Page
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Editorial Deepwater Horizon A story set on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded during April 2010 and created the worst oil spill in US history.
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Little Men A new pair of best friends have their bond tested by their parents’ battle over a dress shop lease.
12-15 The Fencer Fleeing from the Russian Secret Police, a young Estonian is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however caches up with him and puts him in front of a difficult choice.
16-19 A Date for Mad Mary ‘Mad’ Mary McArdle returns to Drogheda after a short spell in prison for something she’d rather forget. Back home, everything and everyone has changed.
20-23 The Girl On the Train A divorcee becomes entangled in a person’s investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life.
24-29 FilmFest Follower: New York/London/Rome MbM looks at the films which have been chosen at New York, London and Rome film festivals and highlights some of the best.
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The Fencer Little Men Deepwater Horizon
PHOTO CREDITS: Lionsgate: 1,4,6,7,32. Altitude: 8,10,11,31 Element Pictures:16,18,19 Entertainment One: 20,22,23 Munro Film Services:12,14,15,30 Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following for their invaluable help: Gina Deen at Grapevine Hannah Dowie at Grapevine Megan Dobson at Untitled Communications Paige Blackwood at Studio Canal Victoria Cox at Entertainment One Jane Smith at Munro Film Services
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EDITORIAL October – the month that London celebrates film when it stages the BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL which will be its 60th year. It will be screening over 240 feature films from around the world which will be shown at 19 cinema screens across London: Odeon Leicester Square, Vue West End, Haymarket Cinema, Curzon Soho, Picturehouse Central, Prince Charles Cinema, BFI South Bank NFT, Cine Lumiere, Curzon Mayfair, Hackney Picturehouse, ICA., Ritzy, Curzon Chelsea, IMAX. Also for the first time there will be the Embankment Garden Cinema at Victoria Embankment. MBM will be there of course reporting and reviewing on the following films: The Red Turtle, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Their Finest, Arrival, Paterson, Lion, Your Name, Have You Seen My Movie? A United Kingdom, Una, Nocturnal Animals, Elle. Among the stars expected to attend the festival are: Amy Adams Casey Affleck Michelle Williams Sigourney Weaver Miles Teller Jeremy Renner Nicole Kidman Dev Patel Gemma Arterton Brie Larson. You will be able to read all about the London Film Festival in the next LFF Special Edition of 64 pages which will be published online on Sunday 6th November. Meanwhile in this, the 42nd edition of Movies by Mills, there are five reviews: Deepwater Horizon (cover feature), Little Men, A Date for Mad Mary, The Girl on the Train and The Fencer. Film Fest Follower looks at the films which are being screened and highlighted at three major international film festivals: New York, London and Rome. Enjoy the read.
Brian Mills Magazine Editor
Paul Ridler Magazine Designer
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DEEPWATER HORIZON
Directed by Peter Berg. Starring: Dylan O’Brien. Mark Wahlberg. Kate Hudson. Kurt Russell. Gina Rodriguez. John Malkovich. Hey, boys. I’m going to take a leak. You guys good? - Caleb I’ve got you buddy. - Colleague Alright. (As he goes to wander off, he notices an oil leak and someone shouts Hey! That ain’t good!) Hey Jason! You seeing this? - Caleb Based on the oil rig that exploded in 2010, causing the largest oil spill in America’s history. BP owns the lease and creates the drilling plan. You have the drilling contractor, Transocean, which owns the rig and actually performs the drilling operations. And you have the subcontractors who are hired to perform certain tests on the rig. In the case of Deepwater Horizon, Halliburton was the cementing contractor, Cameron was the one who built the B.O.P., Blow Out Preventor. Hours before the explosion, the chief driller, who was a Transocean employee, protested changing from drilling mud to seawater. He was overruled by the company representative of BP, Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich), who essentially had seniority. The advantage to drilling mud is that it is heavier, and is used to hold down gas that may leak into the well and cause a ‘kick’ or blowout. The advantage to seawater is that it speeds up the process of cementing the well, which is expensive. But to save money BP did not have an improved cementing job done and misinterpreted the pressure tests. Other mistakes which were made: Blow Out Preventor failed and the excess pressure caused the drill pipe to bend inside the well, and the Blind Shear could not fully cut the drill string. We’re a big company with millions of moving parts. We all work very hard to ensure those moving parts all function as a means to a very profitable end for all of us. - Donald Vidrine 4
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Saving money at the expense of saving lives. They end up having a blowout and the gas and hydrocarbons that escaped ignited on the generators and exploded. Unfortunately, the driller who protested was among the eleven men whom lost their lives. An oil rig was built for the film. It is located in Chalmette, Louisiana, where filming mostly took place. It has been coined as the largest set piece ever built. Peter Berg wanted to highlight the jobs that oil workers do but also to show how big oil companies put profits before safety. Malkovich’s character Vidrine is responsible for the death of eleven men and in the after credits it stated that he was convicted of manslaughter. Although the characters are thinly sketched, they will still evoke empathy. Mike (Mark Wahlberg) is a happily married man and a proud father of a daughter. As the insight to their conversation before and after he leaves for the oil rig shows. Daddy, you need to get me a fossil. - Sydney I will - Mike I want to be able to hold it up and say ‘My daddy tames dinosaurs’. - Sydney And mission accomplished he reports back on the monitor to tell his wife. That is a genuine dinosaur’s tooth. - Mike She will freak out! You’re a good man, Mike. - Felicia
There is another subplot that involves Mike and Gina Rodriguez’s character, the only woman working on the rig. In an early sequence, which allows to meet the team before they leave for duty, we see Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) and her boyfriend. He has a motorbike and she wants to ride it, but instead she rides pillion. She is established as gutsy and girlie. She tries to fix her car without success and once on Deepwater Horizon, Mike tells her what she needs to do to the engine and what is wrong with it. When disaster strikes Deepwater, it is Andrea who is insistent that they need outside help and though she is told that she has no right to call May Day May Day – ultimately she takes charge of the situation. Their camaraderie and trust is put to the test when they are forced to leave the inferno and jump into the fiery waters. It is to Mike that Andrea will owe her life.
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Donald Vitrine (John Malkovich) in Deepwater Horizon.
Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) and Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) In Deepwater Horizon. 6
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Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) in Deepwater Horizon.
Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) in Deepwater Horizon.
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LITTLE MEN Directed by Ira Sachs. Starring: Greg Kinnear. Jennifer Ehle. Paulina Garcia. Michael Barbieri. Theo Taplitz. Talia Balsam. Can’t tell you how happy I am that Jake has a new friend. You have a great kid there, but I guess you know that. - Brian Jardine How rewarding it is to see a film that exceeds your expectations – Little Men is a little gem of a movie. The story concerns the strong bonding between two boys: Tony and Jake. When 13-year-old Jake’s (Theo Taplitz) grandfather dies, his family moves from Manhattan back into his father’s old Brooklyn home. There, Jake befriends the charismatic Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose single mother Leonor (Paulinia Garcia), a dressmaker from Chile, runs the shop downstairs. Soon, Jake’s parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), one a struggling actor, the other a psychotherapist, ask Leonor to sign a new, steeper lease on her store. For Leanor, the proposed new rent is untenable, and a feud ignites between the adults. At first, Jake and Tony don’t seem to notice; the two boys so different on the surface, begin to develop a formative kinship as they discover the pleasures of being young in Brooklyn. Jake aspires to be an artist, while Tony wants to act, and they have dreams of going to the same prestigious arts high school together. But the children can’t avoid the problems of their parents forever, and soon enough, the adult conflict intrudes upon the borders of their friendship.
Ira Sachs’s direction is spot-on and once again shows his trademark humanism and insight into children and adults behaviour – the key in this film being about life-defining friendships that many of us will be able to relate to when we reflect on our own childhood friendships…and perhaps rewind those times to ask ourselves, where are they? Filmmaker Ira Sachs has often drawn on the broad circumstances of his own life to explore questions about human character and relationships. 8
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In 2014, he made Love is Strange, which in part was inspired by his recent marriage and centred on two men whose loving relationship stretches back four decades. Ira Sachs explains: I continue to be interested in questions of generations, and how we interact with our parents and our kids. I’m now a parent, a father of two four year-year-olds. I think a lot about my relationship to who they are and what it is to be a father. So, I wanted to make a film about childhood but from the perspective of an adult person and as a mature filmmaker. In casting the roles of Jake and Tony, Sachs looked for actors who would register strongly as individuals, in addition to possessing talent and craft. Theo Taplitz. a Los Angeles native who plays Jake, came to the film through veteran casting director Avy Kaufman, who has shown a particular skill in discovering young talent, having cast lead children in films like The Sixth Sense, The Ice Storm, Searching for Bobby Fisher, and Life of Pi. New Yorker Michael Barbieri responded to an open casting call at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, where he studies acting. Little Men is the feature film debut for both. Something has to be distinct about their personalities that came across on the screen and Sachs thought that he had found that with Theo and Michael. Taplitz appreciated the story’s representation of the two thirteen-year -olds: Thirteen is that kind of age where you’re not exactly a kid, but you’re not exactly grown-up. It’s that in-between age where you’re still trying to figure who you are, what your interests are. Jake is a very quiet, artistic kid, who’s not very sure of himself. Then he meets Tony, who’s so full of life and optimism and says whatever he thinks. I think Jake is very drawn to that, and over the course of the friendship some of Tony rubs off on him. Jake starts to open up and becomes more confident in who he is. Barbieri sees it this way: Jake and Tony’s support for one another’s dreams are an important part of their friendship. Tony wants to be an actor and Jake wants to be an artist, and that helps them become even closer. Tony has lots of friends, but he doesn’t have a close friend when Jake moves in. They really hit it off, and become great friends. I think their friendship makes Tony more sensitive. When some other kids make fun of Jake, Tony stands up for him and defends him.
The other startling performance that must be mentioned is that of Greg Kinnear who plays Jake’s father Brian. A veteran actor in such films as As Good As It Gets, which starred Jack Nicholson. Greg’s role gained him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is also fondly remembered for his part in the heart felt comedy Little Miss Sunshine, which received several Academy Award nominations. Kinnear’s future films are the comedy, Jay, which he both directs, and stars in alongside Emily Mortimer, Luke Wilson, Bradley Whitfield, and Jay Duplass. Also this year, Greg Kinnear will be seen in Rick Famuyiwa’s Confirmation opposite Kerry Washington for HBO, in which he portrays Vice President Joe Biden In Little Men, sit back and watch Greg Kinnear give a performance best. In summary Little Men is a delightful viewing experience. Long will it be remembered and I have no hesitation in recommending this film as a must-see.
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Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) in Little Men.
Jake (Theo Taplitz) in Little Men 10
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Jake (Theo Taplitz) in Little Men.
Brian (Greg Kinnear) in Little Men.
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THE FENCER
Directed by Klaus Haro. Starring: Mart Avandi. Ursula Ratasepp. Lembit Ulfsak. Liisa Koppel. Krill Karo. Joonas Koof. Hendrik Toompere. I’d like you to go and see what you can find out about Comrade Nelis - The Principal This beautifully made film about the skilful art of fencing is reminiscent of the Spanish classic The Fencing Master, which depicted Don Jaime Astarloa as the eponymous Fencing Master teaching his art to a dwindling number of interested students. When the talented Adela de Otero demonstrates her formidable skill and expresses her desire to become his first female apprentice, he accepts. In The Fencer the teacher, Endel (Mart Avandi) is fleeing from the Russian Secret Police because of a controversial past and is forced to return to his homeland in Estonia. The film opens with him going to begin his job as a sports teacher at a school. The movie is based on the real life story of an Estonian fencer Endel Nellis. The Principal (Hendrik Toompere) of the school is dismayed to find that Endel is teaching the children fencing, his expertise, rather than sport. The class proves to be very popular with the children but for one of his students Jaan (Krill Karo) a restless boy who lives with his mother and grandfather, he loses his confidence after making mistakes and walks away from the class but Endel gets him to return and spends time tutoring him until he wins back the confidence he needs, and like the other children, Endel becomes a father figure to him.
Jaan’s grandfather played by veteran actor Lembit Ulfsak, presents Jaan with his own sword, but Jaan gives it to Endel out of respect for his teacher. When the together children fencing, 12
principal of the school calls a meeting of the local community to address the issue of fencing to persuade them that the should be taught sport rather than concentrate on outdated it is Jaan’s grandfather who speaks up and tells him that Karl
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Marx himself was an expert fencer and asks that the question of whether fencing should be taught at the school or not, should be put to the vote. The principal reluctantly agrees. To his dismay, hands begin to raise one-by-one and the vote is carried for fencing to be taught. It is a victory for Endel and his students, but spells the end for Jaan’s grandfather who is arrested by the Secret Police and sent to a labour camp in Russia. At the school Endel encounters a fellow teacher who will eventually win his heart. Her name is Kadri. I think it’s very nice what you do for the children. - Kadri Among Endel’s students is an enthusiastic girl named Marta who is a naturally gifted fencer. When they are offered the chance to compete in the championships in Leningrad, she is thrilled. But for Endel to take a team to Leningrad would mean him being arrested and sent to the labour camps because his secret would have been discovered: during World War II he was forced to serve in the German army and needed to find a safe haven to hide from Stalin’s secret police, and this remote Estonian village provided it, though the jealousy it arouses in the principal is dangerous and even life-threatening. The Fencer is an affecting portrait of a decent man who risks his life to honour the bond of trust with his students. Your life is at stake and you worry about kids. - Alek Yes, it is reminiscent of Dead Poet’s Society about a teacher who inspires his pupils to look at poetry in a different way and have goals and SEIZE THE DAY. The climactic scene of the tournament is brilliantly suspenseful as all tournaments are and of course with this one a life is at stake. Anyone who ever saw Populaire will remember how even a typewriting competition can be breathtakingly exciting. Who will win? And in that case love was an incentive too. Besides the many superlatives that one could give this film, there is the added spectacle of superb cinematography by Tuomo Hutri. There were 81 films competing for the Best Foreign Language film for an Academy Award. 9 of these were shortlisted and The Fencer was one of these and in the company of The Brand New Testament, Embrace of the Serpent, A War, Mustang, Labyrinth of Lies, Son of Saul, Viva and Theeb. Son of Saul went on to win Best Foreign Film. The Fencer ran a crowdfunding through Indiegogo for venues, screenings, advertising and promotion. They needed help to get people to see their film. They particularly wanted it to be shown in Los Angeles. As it was The Fencer had its first theatrical screenings on the 13th March 2015 in Estonia and Finland. On the 3rd July 2015 it was shown at the Munich International Film Festival. The Fencer opened in the UK on the 30th September.
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Endel (Mart Avandi) and Kadri (Ursula Ratasepp) in The Fencer.
Endel (Mart Avandi) and Marta (Liisa Koppel) in The Fencer. 14
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Marta (Liisa Koppel) and Endel (Mart Avandi) in The Fencer.
Endel (Mart Avandi) and Kadri (Ursula Ratasepp) and children in The Fencer.
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A DATE FOR MAD MARY * Spoiler Alert *
Directed by Darren Thornton. Starring: Seana Kerslake. Charleigh Bailey. Tara Lee. Hello. - Charlene. You’re my boyfriend, your name is John. Charlene, this is John Carter, the chap I was telling you about. - Mary. (The young man gets up and leaves) What? - Mary. Straight out of serving a six-month sentence for something she would rather forget, Mary McArdie returns home to Drogheda to find the people around her have moved on. Her best friend Charlene is about to get married and Mary is the Maid of Honour. When Charlene refused ‘a plus one’ for the wedding, on the grounds that she probably couldn’t find a date, Mary is determined to prove them wrong. She throws herself into the local dating scene, in the hope of finding a nice guy who’ll look good in a tuxedo. But finding a date in a town where everyone knows your name and your reputation, is not going to be easy. A lot of the cast of the film is made up of an ensemble of Irish actors, many making their film debut. The film gives the impression that there was a lot of improvisation, but was there? There was not a lot of improv. Most of it was on the page. So I didn’t feel the need to change a lot. - Seanu It is very much as I would speak as Charlene. I am an ad-libber anyway, so I would do a little, but I didn’t feel I needed to change the script at all. - Charleigh 16
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The script is written by two men about women? I never felt that ‘Oh a woman wouldn’t say that’ - Charleigh Some criticism has been made about the accents? We shot half the film in Drogheda and the support we got was insane. It would not have been made without them...the extras, everything. They’re great people. Hopefully they’re behind it, then everyone else will be. We had a cast and crew screening and everyone came up to see it and they seemed happy with it. It isn’t a Drogheda accent but I think a lot of people living in Drogheda are from Dublin. The writers are from Drogheda but their accents are not very strong. - Seana For me, I had it in my head that Charlene was from Dublin, that’s why she has a Dublin accent because her parents are Dubs. - Charleigh Basically the girls came up with the backstory themselves.
For me, it was trying to get in the psyche of a bride, because I’m no near in getting ready to getting married. I went on trying on wedding dresses and to see yourself in that. And for hair and make-up as well. Obviously Charlene’s behaviour is different from mine. So it was really about being around family and friends and see how they reacted. And then when you go on set that all comes out then. You just want to be in the moment. - Charleigh The two characters are not terribly likeable; Charlene is a bit of a bitch and Mary is ‘Mad Mary’.
I originally auditioned for Mary and went home and got the full script off a friend and read it and I loved this character and I didn’t see her as a villain at all. I think it is boring to continually play a likeable person. - Charleigh A Date for Mary is well acted and the film has its moments and praise indeed that it was chosen for this year’s London Film Festival in the First Feature Section of the programme, but MbM found that the protagonist’s humour was not enough to win our sympathy or even keep us interested or care what really happened to her because at the end of the day – she was her worse enemy.
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Mary (Seana Kerslake and Charlene (Charleigh Bailey) in A Date for Mad Mary.
Jess (Tara Lee) in A Date for Mad Mary.
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Mary (Seana Kerslake) in A Date for Mad Mary.
Charlene (Charleigh Bailey) and Mary (Seana Kerslake) in A Date for Mad Mary.
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THYE GIRL ON THE TRAIN Directed by Tate Taylor Starring: Emily Blunt. Haley Bennett. Rebecca Ferguson. Luke Evans. Laura Prepon. Edgar Ramirez. Justin Theroux. Alison Jenner. You were seen in the area that night. Did you murder Megan Hipwell? - Officer Riley
No. - Rachel Watson. People are so used to seeing Emily Blunt so glamorous on the big screen that in The Girl on the Train to see her as a struggling alcoholic, Rachel Watson, will be quite a shock. Although Emily plays the worst looking alcoholic in the world, when she read the book – she loved it. I was completely sucked into it and thrilled by the idea that your protagonist was a blackout drunk. That’s very unusual. Especially in cinema, to have a woman who’s just so messed up at the forefront of the film. - Emily Blunt The author of the book, Paula Hawkins, said that she was happy to be uninvolved in the film-writing process for the film. An awful lot of what goes on happens inside Rachel’s head, you can’t have that in films. So they have things like introducing Lisa Kudrow’s character, who I think is only really on one line mentioned, while in the book she is not even named. The Girl on the Train is the story of Rachel Watson’s life postdivorce. Every day, she takes the train into work in New York, and every day the train passes by her old house. The house she lived in with her husband, who still lives there, with his new wife and child. As she attempts to not focus on her pain, she starts watching a couple who live in a few houses down – Megan and Scott Hipwell. She creates a wonderful dream life for them in her head, about how they are a perfect happy family. And then one day, as the train passes, she sees something shocking, filling her with rage. The next day, she wakes up with a horrible hangover, various wounds and bruises, and no memory of the night before. She has only a feeling: something bad happened. Then come the TV reports: Megan Hipwell is missing. Rachel becomes invested in the case and trying to find out what happened to Megan, where she is, and what exactly she herself was up to that same night Megan went missing. Over 10 million copies of the book have been sold on which the film is based; as the book’s blurb shows:
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Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking, and in one moment everything changes. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar. Now they’ll see: she’s much more than just the girl on the train …
I used to watch this perfect couple. They were the embodiment of true love. - Rachel The initial idea of the story came to author Paula Hawkins on her daily commute on the underground and part of the journey was in the open above ground and she was able to see into people’s houses and got a connection with some by recognizing a print on a wall or something and she would think that she would probably like those people. She would idly day-dream about what she would do if she saw something shocking or surprising and whether she would be able to say anything about it because it would have been such a fleeting glimpse. In the book and film there are three narrators: Rachel (Emily Blunt) An unreliable narrator and alcoholic who cannot her own mind, Anna Watson (Rebecca Ferguson) the new wife of Rachel’s ex-husband, Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett) the woman who Rachel sees from the train and who disappears. For actress Emily Blunt it was a role of a life-time but what did she think about playing such an obnoxious character? She is really someone that people don’t want to be breathing the same air as, to be in that toxic skin. Physically and emotionally it was quite challenging at times. At the end of the day I understood her. I had empathy for her. Even though I was aware that this was a very big property and one that everyone was excited about. It actually felt very collaborative and quite intimate on set and didn’t feel like we were making a huge movie. - Emily Blunt. A lot of the story is about the perceptions of others and how these perceptions change and are mentally floored. The Girl on the Train has been likened to Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl, which was also made into a film, which starred Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and was directed by David Fincher. Yes, there are similarities in the plot: when Nick Dunne’s wife disappears and becomes the focus of intense media attention, Nick (Ben Affleck) sees the spotlight turned on him when it’s suspected that he may not be innocent. As for The Girl on the Train, the film like the book is unpredictable and a psychological thriller.
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wildly
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Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) in The Girl on the Train.
Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett) in The Girl on the Train.
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Anna Watson (Rebecca Ferguson) and Tom Watson (Justin Theroux) in The Girl on the Train.
Tom Watson (Justin Theroux)in The Girl on the Train.
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FILM FEST FOLLOWER NEW YORK SEPT 30 - OCT 16
Main Slate Opening Film THE 13TH Directed by Ava du Vernay. An in depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation’s history of racial inequality. Documentary.
Closing Film THE LOST CITY OF Z Directed by James Gray. Starring: Tom Holland. Charlie Hunman. Sienna Miller. Based on David Green’s best-selling book about British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett, who disappeared while searching for a lost city in the Amazon.
20TH CENTURY WOMEN Directed by Mike Mills. Starring: Elle Fanning. Alla Shawkat. Laura Wiggins. The story of three women who explore love and freedom in Southern California during the late 1970s.
AQUARIUS Directed by Kleber Mendoca Fillio. Starring: Sonia Braga. Marve Jinkings. A 65-year-old widow and retired music critic, is the last resident of the Aquarius, an original two-story building built in the 1940s in an upper-class seaside resort of Boa Vagem Avenue
CERTAIN WOMEN Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Starring: Kristen Stewart. Michelle Williams. Laura Dern. The lives of three women intersect in small town America where calm is imperfectly blazing a trail.
ELLE Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring: Isabelle Huppert. Laurent Lafitte. A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who raped her.
FIRE AT SEA Directed by Gianfranco Rosi. Documentary. Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a front line in the European migrant crisis.
GRADUATION Directed by Cristian Mungiu. Starring: Adrian Titieni. Maria-Victoria Dragus. Greta Gerwig. A film about compromises and the implications of the parent’s role 24
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HERMIA AND HELENA Directed by Matias Pineiro. Starring: Augustina Munoz. Maria Villar. A young theatre director travels from Buenos Aires to New York to attend an artistic residency to develop a Spanish translation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I, DANIEL BLAKE Directed by Ken Loach Starring: Dave Johns. Hayley Squires. A middle-aged carpenter who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar situation.
JULIETA Directed by Pedro Almodovar. Starring: Michelle Jennifer. Rossi de Palma. A broken-hearted woman decides to confront her life and the most important events about her stranded daughter.
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Starring: Casey Affleck. Michelle Williams. Kyle Chandler. An uncle is forced to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy’s father dies.
MOONLIGHT Directed by Barry Jenkins. Starring: Mahershala. Sharif Earp. Chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood.
MY ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA Directed by Dash Shaw. Starring: Lena Dunham. Max Karpovsky. Animation. No plot revealed.
NERUDA Directed by Pablo Larrain. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal. Alfredo Castro. An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his own country.
PATERSON Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Starring: Adam Driver. Goldshifyeh Farahani. Set in the present New Jersey. This is a tale of a bus driver and poet.
PERSONAL SHOPPER Directed by Olivier Assayas. Starring: Kristen Stewart. Lars Eidinger. Revolves around a ghost story that takes place in the fashion underworld of Paris.
THE REHEARSAL Directed by Alison Maclean. Starring: James Rolleston. Kerry Fox. First-year acting student uses his girlfriend’s family scandal as material for the end-of-year at drama school.
SIERANEVADA Directed by Cristi Pulu. Starring: Mimi Branescu. Mirela Apostu. Centres around a family gathering of the anniversary of a patriarch’s recent death.
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SON OF JOSEPH Directed by Eugen Green. Starring: Victor Ezenfis. Natacha Recnier. No plot revealed.
STAYING VERTICAL Directed by Alain Guiraudie. Starring: Damien Bonnard. India Hair. A filmmaker has to raise a child by himself whilst looking for inspiration for his new film.
THINGS TO COME Directed by Mia Hansen-Love. Starring: Isabelle Huppert. A philosophy teacher soldiers on through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job, and dealing with her husband who has been cheating on her.
TONI ERDMANN Directed by Maren Ade. Starring: Peter Simonischek. Sandra Huller. A father tries to reconnect with his daughter.
THE UNKNOWN GIRL Directed by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne. Starring: Adele Haenal. Olivier Bonnard. A doctor attempts to uncover the identity of a patient who dies after she refused her treatment.
YOURSELF AND YOURS Directed by Sang-Soo Hong. Starring: Kim Ju-Hyuck. An intriguing foray into the uncanny and ingenious spin on Bunuel’s “The Obscure Object of Desire”.
LONDON OCT 5 – 16 OPENING NIGHT GALA A UNITED KINGDOM
Directed by Amma Asante Starring: David Oyelowo. Rosamund Pike. The defiant and enduring love story of Seretse Kharma, King of Bechuanaland and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the government of the time.
CLOSING NIGHT GALA FREE FIRE
Directed by Ben Wheatley. Starring: Sharlto Copley. Arnie Hammer. Brie Larson. Cillian Murphy. Sharp-witted Justine brokers a deal on behalf of two Irishmen setting them up to but a stash of guns from seedy gangsters. But the meet-up in a deserted warehouse derails when stoner side-kick recognises one of the handover guys and shots are fired. 26
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AMERICAN EXPRESS GALA LION Directed by Garth Davis. Starring: Dev Patel. Rooney Mara. David Wenham. Nicole Kidman. Saroo is haunted by lucid, recurring memories of his past. He begins an obsessive search for his original family, his mother and siblings in India.
ROYAL BANK OF CANADA ARRIVAL Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Starring: Amy Adams. Jeremy Renner. Forrest Whitaker. Professor of linguistics Dr Louise Banks is enlisted by the US government to decipher the language of extra-terrestrials who have initiated first contact. She is accompanied by scientist Ian Donelly on a mission to determine the purpose of their mysterious visitation.
HEADLINE GALAS THE BIRTH OF A NATION Directed by Nate Parker. Starring: Nate Parker. Arnie Hammer. A gruelling account of the life of Nat Turner, an enslaved African American and ordained preacher who led a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831.
LA LA LAND Directed by Damien Chazelle. Starring: Ryan Gosling. Emma Stone. John Legend. JK Simmons. Damien Chazelle’s bitter-sweet love letter to the city of Los Angeles, the golden era of Hollywood musicals and the visual flair of Jacques Demy. A jazz pianist meets and falls in love with an actress. A huggable film that will have your feet tapping and your heart singing.
*MANCHESTER BY THE SEA NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Directed by Tom Ford. Starring: Amy Adams. Jake Gyllenhaal. Michael Shannon. Susan, a Los Angeles gallery director receives a manuscript of a novel written and sent to her from her ex-husband. It is a thriller about a man whose recklessness and fear ultimately endanger the lives of his wife and teenage daughter. The film switches from the world of the novel to Susan’s reality and memories of her first marriage.
SNOWDEN Directed by Oliver Stone Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Shailene Woodley. Melisso Leo. A super-charged political thriller which charts Snowden’s rise as an intelligence operative.
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ROME OCT 13 - 23
Opening Film IN GUERRA PER AMORE Directed by Pif Starring: Pif. Andrea Di Stefano. A love story set in July ’43 when allied forces landed in Sicily. Arturo loves Flora, daughter of a restaurant owner, but she has been promised in marriage to a Mafia boss.
Closing Film THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig Starring: Hailee Steinfeld. Haley Lu Richardson. Woody Harrelson. High-school life gets even more unbearable for Nadine when her best friend, Krista, starts dating her older brother.
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Directed by Matt Ross. Starring: Viggo Mortensen. George MacKay. A father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise.
STORKS Directed by Nicolas Stoller. Doug Sweetland. Animation. Storks have moved on from delivering babies to packages.
7 MINUTI Directed by Michele Placido. Starring: Amara Angiolini. Christiana Caputondi. The owners of an Italian textile factory sell the majority of the property to a multinational company. No lay-offs are planned, but there is a special clause in the contract.
AFTERIMAGE Directed by Andrzei Wajda. Starring: Auguslaw Linda. Aleksandra Justa. A passionate biopic about avant-garde artist Strzeminski.
THEIR FINEST Directed by Lone Scherfig Starring: Gemma Arterton. Sam Claflin. Bill Nighy. A British film crew attempts to boost morale during World War 2 by making a propaganda film after the Blitzkrieg.
Special Presentations ALL I SEE IS YOU Directed by Marc Foster Starring: Blake Lively. Yvonne Strahovski. Jason Clarke. A blind woman’s relationship with her husband changes when she regains her sight.
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BLEED FOR THIS Directed by Ben Younger Starring: Miles Teller. Katey Sagal. Aaron Ekhart. The inspirational story of World Champion boxer Vinny Pazienza who, after a near fatal car crash, which left him not knowing if he’d ever walk again, made one of sport’s most incredible comebacks.
THE COMMUNE Directed by Thomas Vinterberg Starring: Fares Fares. Ulrich Thomson. Tryne Dyrholm. A story about the clash between personal desires vs. solidarity and tolerance in a Danish commune in the 70s.
THE WOMAN IN THE SILVER PLATE Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa Starring: Tahar Rahim. Constance Rousseau. Olivier Goumet. When an assistant to a daguerreotype photographer falls in love with the latter’s daughter, the relationship mirrors the art form as love and pain combine.
*MANCHESTER BY THE SEA MAUDIE Directed by Aisling Walsh Starring: Ethan Hawke. Sally Hawkins. An arthritic Nova Scotia woman works as a housekeeper while she hones her skills as an artist and eventually becomes a beloved figure in the community.
PARIS CAN WAIT Directed by Eleanor Coppola Starring: Diane Lane. Alec Baldwin. Arnaud Viard. Anne is at the crossroads in her life. Long married to a successful, driven but inattentive movie producer. She unexpectedly finds herself taking a car trip from Cannes to Paris with a business associate of her husband.
*PATERSON *TONI ERDMANN UNA Directed by Benedict Andrews Starring: Riz Ahmed. Ben Mendelsohn. Rooney Mara. When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at an older man’s workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of the past threaten to unravel his new life.
IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD Directed by Xavier Dolan Starring: Natalie Baye. Vincent Cassel. Marion Cotillard. Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.
*See New York or London for these films.
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