CONTENTS Page 3 4-7
Editorial A Star Is Born A musician helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.
8-11
Crazy Rich Asians This contemporary romantic comedy, based on a global bestseller, follows native New Yorker Rachel Chu to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family.
12-15
FilmFest Follower Buzan
16-23
FilmFest Follower New York
24-29
FilmFest Follower Telluride
30-31
Extras DVDs of the Month The Eyes of Orson Welles On Chesil Beach
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Poster
(A Star is Born)
PHOTO CREDITS: WARNER BROS:1,4,6,7,8,10,11,32
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We would to thank the following for their help in providing help and links for images for this magazine: Clare Cornick @ Warner Bros. Jenny Brereton @ Warner Bros.
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EDITORIAL The autumn buzz is almost upon us with the 62nd London Film Festival, but before we savour that passionate programme of goodies, we need to celebrate the films on release now. So, what have we for you film lovers in this issue before the big parade reviews next month? Our cover picture shows Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in “A Star is Born”, the fourth remake of the story that originally birthed in 1937 and starred Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, reborn in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason, and reborn again in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and now the latest reincarnation with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. How does it fare, well, if judged by film festival screenings, it has been a total crowd-pleaser meeting with 10 minutes standing ovation – and it promises to do the same here. The other film reviewed is the feel-good Chinese box-office success “Crazy Rich Asians” which is romantically-gauged to pluck your heartstrings. Plus, we have filmfest follower: looking at Busan, New York, Telluride. Plus: DVDs of the Month
Enjoy the Read
Brian Mills
Paul Ridler
Magazine Editor
Magazine Designer
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A STAR IS BORN Directed by Bradley Cooper Starring: Lady Gaga. Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott Can I ask you a personal question? Jackson Okay Ally Do you write songs or anything? Jackson I don’t sing my own songs Ally Why? Jackson I just don’t feel comfortable Ally Why don’t you feel comfortable? Jackson Almost every single person has told me they like the way I sound but don’t like the way I look. Ally I think you’re beautiful. Jackson A Star is Born, a fourth reincarnation of a film that started out in 1937 and starred Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. A remake happened with Judy Garland and James Mason, and that was followed by the Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson version. Movies are aptly named because at their core they should move you emotionally. Yes, you experience them vicariously through the characters, and they must be believable and here we have a rock star Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) who is publicly successful but privately self-destructive through drink and drugs. After one of his Shows, he tells his driver to stop-off somewhere because he doesn’t want to go home. It is a drag bar and it is there that he meets a singer named Ally (Lady Gaga) who promises the drag artistes that she will sing for them and it’s her voice and her dynamic presence that mesmerises Jackson. What he discovers about this remarkable singer is that she writes all her own songs. He believes in her and helps to launch her career, while his own is falling beneath him. They fall in love even though their lives together is going to be a rocky one. 4
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There are magical moments and most of them come through the songs she writes, the songs that are sung. What keeps them together is Ally’s love and acceptance of Jackson. When Ally first gets up on stage with Jackson and she sings “The Shallow” with him, it is electrifying and only cadavers would not be moved by it. Even though he embarrasses her, she still forgives him and we watch as he struggles to fight his own demons, which isn’t helped by an encroaching deafness and tinnitus that shoves him further on his downward spiral. What we have here is a rising star madly in love with a loser with a heart. Music is always a companion to emotion. Many things that we can’t express verbally take on a deeper meaning when sung. Ally writes songs that are from her heart or the mood that she feels. At the end there is another tear-jerking moment when Ally sings a song which Jackson wrote for her. It is called I’ll Never Love Again. This film is Bradley Cooper’s first directional movie and Lady Gaga’s first dramatic part. It is the epitome of emotion and is no surprise that it received a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. It is also a hot favourite to win an Oscar or Oscars, come next March. If after seeing this beautiful film it has not moved you and you have switched off – then you were never switched on. Don’t suppress your feelings: laugh, cry, tap your feet to the music. Over the years and the thousands of films I’ve seen, I have a built-in barometer which shows how the film is affecting me. I call it an emotional shudder. And of life, there is great piece of advice by Bobby, Jackson’s brother, played by the reliable Sam Elliott who says: Music is essentially twelve notes between any octave. Twelve notes and the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All the artist can offer the world is how they see those twelve notes.
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Jackson (Bradley Cooper) & Ally (Lady Gaga) in A Star Is Born
Jackson (Bradley Cooper) & Ally (Lady Gaga) in A Star Is Born 6
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Ally (Lady Gaga) & Jackson (Bradley Cooper) in A Star Is Born
Bradley Cooper on the set of A Star Is Born
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CRAZY RICH ASIANS Directed by Jon M. Chu Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh What about us taking an adventure? - Nick Like Queens? - Rachel Singapore, Colin’s wedding. Don’t you want to meet my family? - Nick A romantic comedy, based on Kevin Kwan’s 2013 bestselling novel, loosely based on Kwan’s childhood in Singapore. The author’s intention of writing the novel was to ‘introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience’. The story has been adapted to the screen by Adele Lim and Peter Chiarelli and is about a Chinese American named Rachel Chu, an economics professor who travels with her boyfriend Nick to Singapore, his hometown, to attend his best friend’s wedding. Unbeknown to Rachel, Nick comes from the richest family in Singapore. At the beginning of the movie we meet Rachel played by Constance Wu and Nick Young (Henry Golding), in his first feature film. Jon Chu found him from their accountants in Malaysia, who was a travel host there. He had never done a movie before. He improved every day he was there and showed himself to be quite an incredible actor and you are going see him a lot and has an excellent future. Rachel and Nick’s meeting is a popular section in the book. In the film’s screenplay it is about two sentences, so they had to design from the ground up. In the book it talks about how the gossip spreads through Radio One Asia. You see a woman taking a sly picture on her phone of the couple and then texting the news to her friends and family members to destroy this American girl coming to Singapore to take their man. Chu used a very clever way of getting these messages across by passing this information. He used a company ratio to help design it and wanted to show how the messages were spreading around the world through social media, so you actually see the posts that people are sending on the screen. It then cuts to this magnificent home where we meet Nick’s mother Eleanor receiving these messages from friends, while conducting
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a Bible Study. She is appalled and wants nothing to do with this American girl coming to Singapore. The director’s experience when he first came to Singapore as an American Asian was similar to Rachel’s: it felt like home, but not really like home. The theme of the film is the dual cultural identity that Rachel goes through and relevant to many American Asians. The spectacular visuals of Singapore act like a dream destination and opulence is quickly embedded into our minds. Nick Young’s family is mega-rich and this shows in the opening scene in which Nick’s mother is insulted by the manager of a fancy London hotel and buys it from under him. Rachel soon finds herself subjected to the disapproving scrutiny of the older generation and vicious sniping from potential rivals, particularly Eleanor who tells her that Rachel will never be enough for Nick and really is out of his league. She is an outsider and her mother comes from a working class background. With the encouragement of Rachel’s dizzy and captivating friend Peik Lin Goh who tells her to stand-up to Eleanor, which provides many of the comical scenes, when she does just that. Nick chose me over his family, and if he chose his family, he might spend the rest of his life resenting you. The film is a feel-good experience and a romantic comedy which hearkens back to a genre to savour when the makers provide an envious narrative that also has scored high at the world-wide box office. Crazy Rich Asians turned down a generous offer from Netflix because the book’s author wanted it to be seen on the big screen. Jon M Chan insisted on complete casting control and wanted a character-driven love story aimed firmly at an increasingly globalised audience. It’s the highest grossing Hollywood romcom since The Proposal in 2009 and it cost only $30 million. The story is essentially Jane Austin revisited and refreshingly oldfashioned with an ending that produced for me an emotional shudder. Surprisingly, Asian actors are generally not expressive, though you wouldn’t think so in this movie. Films are first and foremost about feelings, and audiences have shown that this is one vicarious film that gets the audience laughing, clapping and tapping their feet to the soundtrack. Constance Wu has stated that she is very emotional and watching her is like watching her play herself in a documentary. She is a natural and studied acting in New York at the famed Lee Strasberg Acting Institute, the home of ‘method acting’. Both Constance Woo and Henry Golding have wonderful acting prospects ahead of them, so expect to hear more about them soon.
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Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), Nick (Henry Golding), Rachel(Constance Woo) in Crazy Rich Asians
Rachel(Constance Woo) in Crazy Rich Asians 10
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Peik Lin Goh(Awkwafina) in Crazy Rich Asians
Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), Ah Ma (Lisa Lu), Nick (Henry Golding), Rachel (Constance Woo) in Crazy Rich Asians
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FILMFEST FOLLOWER BUSAN October 4th-13th
Opening Film BEAUTIFUL DAYS Directed by Jero Yun Starring: Lee Na-young, Jang Dong-yoon, Oh Kwang-rok Zhen Chen visits Korea when his Korean-Chinese father asks to see his wife once again before he dies. When he finds his mother, she is not what he expected. Working in a bar and living with some hoodlum, Chen cannot understand his mother’s choice in men and occupation and returns to China hurt and disappointed. But when he starts reading a notebook she gave him, learns about her past, the tiny age difference between them, the mystery between mother and son emerges.
Closing Film MASTER ZIP: THE IP MAN LEGACY Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping Starring: Max Zhang, Dave Bautista, Yan Liu, Michele Yeoh After giving up Wing Chun, Cheung Tin Chi ran into trouble with the local Triad and his home burnt to the ground. He took shelter on Bar Street and found solace from the neighbours. But when he discovered the Triad was peddling drugs on Bar Street, Tin Chi took it upon himself to intervene. When the drug lord sought revenge and killed Tin Chi’s friends, he decided to take on the drug lord in a final showdown.
Gala Presentation ODE TO THE GOOSE Directed by Lu Zhang Starring: Hae-il, Sor-ri Moon, Jin-young, Sodam Park Yoon-young has been harbouring feelings for Song-hyun, a friend’s wife. When he finds out that she is divorced. They take a trip to Gunsan on a whim. They find lodging at an Inn where the owner lives with his autistic daughter. The four become star-crossed lovers.
KILLING Directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto Starring: Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Yu Aoi, Sosuke Ikematsu Set during the tumultuous mid-19th century Edo period of Japan, Killing is the story of a masterless samurai or ronin named Ikematsu Sosuke. As the prevalent peace and tranquillity are sure to be replaced by war and conflict across the land, the swordsman feels restlessness creep upon him. 12
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FIRST NIGHT NERVES Directed by Stanley Kwan Starring: Sammi Chen, Gigi Leung Yuan Xiuling, a former star and has-been actress plans to return to the spotlight of the theatre, a year after her philandering husband died.
A Window in Asian Cinema DARE TO STOP US Directed by Kazuya Shiraishi Starring: Kisetsu Fujiwara, Ku Ijima 21-year-old Megumi goes to Wakamatsu Production Company, they make films popular with young people. Director Koji gathers there with young talented people – all fascinated with movie making.
CAPERNAUM Directed by Nadine Labaki Starring: Kawthar Al Haddad, Boluwatife, Treaure Bankole A politically-charged fable, featuring mostly non-professional actors, about a child who launches a lawsuit against his parents.
SHADOW Directed by Yimou Zhang Starring: Chao Deng, Li Sun Set during China’s Three Kingdom’s Era. The story of a great king and his people, who will be expelled from their homeland and will aspire to claim it.
FORTITUDE Directed by Rashid Mazikov Starring: Karia Mirkhadiev, Seidulla Moldakhanov 50-year-old Saidulla, a former Soviet Army captain, lives alone in a fishing village where he works as a high school teacher, when the doctor tells him he has cancer. He gets his gun and drives 200km, forcing Major Nazarov into his car.
COME ON IRENE Directed by Yoshida Keisuke Starring: Ken Yasuda, Nats Sitoy Iwao Shishido has found a wife. After paying three million yen for a bridal tour to the Phillipines, he comes home with Irene, who is promptly confronted by Tsury, Iwao’s freshly widowed mother, who’s infuriated her loser son has married a woman she’s never met.
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BULBUL CAN SING Directed by Rima Das Starring: Rima Das, Arnai Das, Manoranjan Das In her small Assam village, teenaged Bulbul falls in love for the first time, experiencing tragedy, and starts questioning who she is in this coming-of-age story about passion, secrets, social demands and restrictions, rebellion and ultimately the freedom to be who you are.
WIDOW OF SILENCE Directed by Prawren Morchhale Starring: Shilpi Marwaha, Ajay Chourey In conflict-ridden Kashmir, a Muslim widow, responsible for her 11-year -old daughter and ill mother-in-law, finds herself in dire straits. Unable to obtain her missing husband’s death certificate from the government, she must find the strength to overcome this absurd plight.
THE CHRYSANTHEUM AND THE GUILLOTINE Directed by Zeke Taxahisa Starring: Mai Kiryu, Masahiro Higashide Lady sumo wrestling saw its heyday in the years between The Great Kanto Earthquake and World War 2. One lady sumo wrestler’s encounter with a young Marxist anarchist sets the stage for romance in this rural drama about the power of the common people.
SONG OF THE TREE Directed by Aibek Daiyrbekova Starring: Omurbek Izrailov, Tamirian Smanbekov The first musical film ever made in Kyrgyzstan, combined with beautiful songs and stories based on community and tradition. When young hottempered Essen is expelled from his troubled village and tries to run with beautiful Begimal but are caught right away. Left alone, Essen’s journey for his love and revenge begins.
THE ISLAND Directed by Bo Huang Starring: Bo Huang, Qi Shu With Doomsday approaching, a corporate retreat goes awry as they are all wept away in a tsunami. Washing up on a deserted island, they remake the world as they know it.
SLY Directed by Javad Norouzbeigi Starring: Hamed Behdad, Viska Asayesh Ghodrot Samadi wants to become a member of parliament, but he has the reputation for recklessness and taking arbitrary action.
SIGNAL ROCK Directed by Chito Rono Starring: Christian Bables, Daria Ramirez With few prospects in his dead-end fishing village, charming sweet-talker Intoy decides to help his sister in a custody fight overseas. 14
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NO MATTER HOW MUCH MY MOM HATES ME Directed by Minorikawa Osamu Starring: Taiga, Yoh Yoshida After a meeting with a friend, a young man estranged from his mother for years, quietly reconsiders their relationship. Finally deciding to bury the hatchet and put his unhappy youth in the past, he chooses to see her again and attempts to reclaim her love.
THE ENIGMA OF THE ARRIVAL Directed by Song Wen Starring: Xian Li, Wen Song After many years, a group of high school friends reunite. They have not seen each other since the disappearance of Dongdong, a girl they all secretly fancied. The circumstances of her disappearance cause the end of their friendship.
FLY BY NIGHT Directed by Zahir Omar Starring: Sunny Pang, Bronte Palare In this Kuala Lumpar set crime drama, four cabbies learn there’s no such thing as the perfect con. A blackmail scheme collapses when a new player puts stress on the gang. A job goes wrong, and the police start to close in on them.
MY DEAR FRIEND Directed by Yang Pingdao Starring: Robert Loh, Gabby So In a remote village of Sothern China where spring mist lays, a city woman arrives to find her missing boyfriend. He does not come back.
OUR DEPARTURES Directed by Yoshida Yasuhiro Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Jun Kunimura A trans single mother, Akira, is learning to operate the movements within the family, she is trying to keep together. When Akira and her dead husband’s son, barges into his father’s life and marks a new beginning for them all.
MANTO Directed by Nandita Das Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rasika Dugal Four tumultuous years in the life of author Saadat Hasan Manto as he moves from Bombay to Lahore after the partition and creation of Pakistan.
ASAKO 1 & 2 Directed by Hamaguchi Ryusuke Starring: Masahiro Higashide, Erika Karata Two years after her lover Baku disappeared in Osaka, Asako meets another another man in Tokyo, Ryohei, a grownded salaryman, which Asako will eventually have to choose between.
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FILMFEST FOLLOWER NEW YORK Sep 9th – Oct 10th 2018
OPENING NIGHT THE FAVOURITE Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos Starring: Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Olivia Colman The Duchess of Marlborough and her servant engage in a seriously charged fight to the death for the body and soul of Queen Anne at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession.
CLOSING NIGHT AT ETERNITY’S GATE Directed by Julian Schnabel Starring: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac A fresh look at the last days of Vincent van Gogh’s life which revivifies our sense of the artist as a living, feeling human being.
MAIN SLATE ROMA Directed by Alfonso Cuarón Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey In Mexico City in the early ‘70s, a middle-class family’s centre is quietly and unassumingly held by its beloved live-in nanny and housekeeper. Alfonzo Cuaron tells an epic, autobiographical story of everyday life while also gently sweeping us into a vast cinematic experience.
TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG Directed by Dominga Sotomayor Castillo Starring: Demian Hernández, Antar Machado, Magdalena Tótoro The troubling realities of the adult world intrude on a girl’s teenage idyll in this dreamy drift through Chile of the early 1990s, a nostalgic and piercing portrait of a young woman-and-a country-on the cusp of exhilarating and terrifying change. 16
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TRANSIT Directed by Christian Petzold Starring: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese A hollowed-out European refugee who has escaped from two concentration camps, arrives in Marseille assuming the identity of a dead novelist whose papers he is carrying. This is a brilliant and haunting film.
SHOPLIFTERS Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda Starring; Lily Franky, Kirin Kiki, Sôsuke Ikematsu A Cannes Palme d’Or winner is a heartrending, profoundly human portrait of a most unusual “family”, a collection of societal cast-offs united by petty crime and a fierce love for one another.
SORRY ANGEL Directed by Christophe Honoré Starring: Vincent Lacoste, Pierre Deladonchamps, Denis Olalydès An intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of gay life in early 1990s France.
PRIVATE LIFE Directed by Tamara Jenkins Starring: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti Rachel and Richard, a middle-aged New York couple caught in the desperation, frustration, and exhaustion of trying to have a child.
RAY & LIZ Directed by Richard Billingham Starring: Michelle Bonnard, James Eeles, Sam Gittins Not a second of this electrifying debut doesn’t feel 100% rooted in personal experience. English photographer and visual artist Richard Billingham’s film is grounded in the visual and emotional textures of his family portraits, particularly those of his deeply dysfunctional parents.
MONROVIA, INDIANA Directed by Frederick Wiseman A documentary from Frederick Wiseman, now 88 years old, seems more vigorous and acute than the last. In this tough, piercing look at the rhythm and texture of life as it is lived in a wide swathe of this country, the documents a small town located in the American heartland.
NONFICTION Directed by Olivier Assayas Starring: Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche Set within the world of publishing, Olivier Assayas’s new film finds two hopelessly intertwined couples-including a troubled book executive and a weary actress, both obsessed with the state of things, and how, or when, it might change.
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IN MY ROOM Directed by Ulrich Köhler Starring: Hans Löw, Elena Radonicich, Michael Winterborn A sad-sack, 40ish TV cameraman Armin awakens one morning to find the world around him entirely depopulated. Kohler takes a disarmingly realistic and restrained approach to a fantastical premise, the eternally popular fantasy of the last man on earth.
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT Directed by Bi Gan Starring: Sylvia Chang, Jongzhong Chen, Jue Huang This noir-tinged film about a solitary man haunted by loss and regret is told in two parts; the first an achronological mosaic; the second a nocturnal dream. Bi Gan has created a film like nothing you’ve seen before, especially in the second half’s hour-long, gravity-defying 3D sequence shot.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK Directed by Barry Jenkins Starring: Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King A carefully wrought adaptation of James Baldwin’s penultimate novel, set in Harlem in the early 1970s. Jenkin’s deeply soulful film stays focused on the emotional currents between parents and children, couples and friends.
THE IMAGE BOOK Directed by Jean-Luc Godard Starring: Jean-Luc Godard, Dimitri Basil Documentary with predominantly pre-existing images, many of which will be familiar from Godard’s previous work, this is a film in which relationships between image and sound is, as always, intensely physical and sometimes jaw-dropping.
HIGH LIFE Directed by Claire Denis Starring: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche Denis’s latest film features some of the most unsettling passages Denis has ever filmed, as well moments of the greatest delicacy and tenderness-is set aboard a spacecraft piloted by death row prisoners on a decades-long suicide mission to enter and harness the power of a black hole.
HOTEL BY THE RIVER Directed by Hong Sangsoo Starring:Joo-Bong Ki, Min-nee Kim, Hae-hyo Kwon Two tales overlap and intersect at a riverside hotel, affecting an examination of family, mortality, and the ways in which we attempt to heal wounds old and fresh. 18
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HAPPY as LAZZARO Directed by Alice Rohrwacher Starring: Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Luca Chikovani A throng of tobacco farmers working on an estate live in a state of extreme deprivation, but nothing is what it seems in this transfixing fable, which touches on perennial class struggle and enters the realm of parable.
HER SMELL Directed by Alex Ross Perry Starring: Elizabeth Moss, Cara Delevinge, Dan Stevens In a powerhouse performance, Elizabeth Moss is Becky Something, the influential lead singer of a popular ‘90s all-rock outfit spiralling out of control as she struggles with her demons.
LA FLOR Directed by Mariano Llinás Starring: Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa A decade in the making, Argentinian filmmaker Mariano Lilnais’ film is a labour of love and madness that redefines the concept of binge viewing, shape-shifting from a B-movie to a musical to a spy thriller to a category-defying metafiction to a remake of a very well-known French classic and finally to an enigmatic period piece.
GRASS Directed by Sang-soo Hong Starring: Min-hee Kim, Joobong Kee Sitting in a café, typing on a laptop, Areum eavesdrops on three dramatic situations unfolding in her general vicinity. These create the narrative structure of Korean’s master Sangsoo’s completely episodic, deceptively simple film, which is filled with raw emotions.
A FAITHFUL MAN Directed by Louis Garrel Starring: Lily–Rose Depp, Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta A beguiling bedroom farce and a slippery inquiry into truth, subjectivity, and the elusive nature of romantic attraction.
A FAMILY TOUR Directed by Liang Ying Starring: Nai An, Zhe Gong Exiled Chinese director Ying Liang’s return to feature filmmaking is a characteristically precise drama following a Hong Kong-exiled director as she travels to a film festival in Taiwan with her husband and toddler and must avoid attracting attention. It’s a powerful work of autobiography and an empathetic snapshot of a mother-daughter relationship.
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BURNING Directed by Chang-dong Lee Starring: Ah-In Yoo, Steven Yeun Korean master Lee Chang-dong’s expansion of Haruki Murakami’s short story “Barn Burning” is a love triangle and a tense, haunting multiple-character study that benefits the contours of the thriller genre to brilliant effect.
COLD WAR Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski Starring: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot Academy Award-winner Pawlikowski follows up his box office sensation Ida with this bittersweet, exquisitely crafted tale of a tempestuous love between a pianist and a singer as they navigate the realities of living in both Poland and Paris, in and outside the Iron Curtain.
ASH IS PUREST WHITE Directed by Zhangke Jia Starring: Zhao Tao, Fan Liao, Yi’nan Diao An extraordinary gangster melodrama begins by following Qiao and her mobster boyfriend Bin as they stake out their turf against rivals and upstarts in 2001 Datong before expanding out into an epic, three-part narrative of how abstract forces shape individual lives.
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Starring: Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, and others. Here’s something new from the Coen Brothers, a widely entertaining anthology of short films based on a fictional book of “western tales”.
3 FACES Directed by Jafar Panahi Starring: Behnaz Jafari, Jafar Panahi, Marziyek Rezael. In Iranian director, Jafar Panahi’s fourth completed feature since he was banned from filmmaking, a young woman appears to take her own life on cell-phone camera. The recipient of the video and Panahi, playing himself, investigates, and from there, 3 Faces builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy.
ASAKO 1 & 2 Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi Starring: Masahiro Higashide, Erika Karata, Sairi Itô. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who gained attention for 2015’s Happy Hour, has returned with a beguiling and truly original Vertigo riff that traces the trajectory of a love or, to be accurate, two loves, found, lost, displaced, and regained. 20
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SPOTLIGHT ON DOCUMENTARY AMERICAN DHARMA Directed by Errol Morris Errol Morris faces off with none other than Steve Barron, former Goldman Sachs partner and movie executive, self-proclaimed ‘populist’ warrior and a long time cinephile, in this unflinching film.
ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT Directed by James Longley School children grow up before our eyes into young adults in the shattered city of Kabul in the meticulously constructed new film from James Longley.
CARMINE STREET GUITARS Directed by Ron Mann Ron Mann’s Carmine Street Guitars is a lovely portrait of a week in the life of luthier Rick Kelly’s eponymous ground floor shop.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER: THE STORY OF ROGER AILES Directed by Alexis Bloom Alexis Blook’s scrupulous, methodically mounted documentary concerns Roger Ailes, the hemophilliac boy from Warren, Ohio, who worked the way up from television production to the Nixo White House to the Nixon White House to stewardship of the full-fledged right-wing propaganda machine Fox News.
DREAM OF A CITY Directed by Manfried Kirchheimer 87-year old Manny Kirchheimer’s astonishing documentary is comprised of stunning black and white images of the city from 1958 to 1960.
END OF LIFE Directed by John Bruce, Pawel Wojtasik Bruce and Wojtasik are tuned to a very special and extraordinary delicate wavelength as artists, and their radiant film takes a respectful and serenely composed look at the very activity, the actual work, of dying for five individuals.
FIRE MUSIC Directed by Tom Surgal A look at the astonishing sounds and sights of that combustible and wildly diverse moment in music known as free jazz. It’s a fittingly wild and freedom tribute to music that makes your hair stand on end.
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MARIA BY CALLAS Directed by Tom Volf Maria Callas, one of the supreme artists of the mid-20th century, and this documentary is a cinematic love note to a great artist, and a vivid audio-visual document of mid-century western culture.
THE MEMPHIS BELLE: A STORY OF A FLYING FORTRESS Directed by William Wyler Major William Wyler’s Memphis Belle, shot on 16mm from a B-17 bomber, is one of the greatest of the WW2 combat documentaries, and it has now been meticulously and painstakingly restored.
THE TIMES OF BILL CUNNINGHAM Directed by Mark Bozek Working with precious material, including a lengthy 1994 filmed interview with Cunningham and his subject’s earliest pre-New York Times photographs, Mark Bozek’s takes us on a lovely and invigorating journey into the world of the now legendary street photographer.
THE WALDHEIM WALTZ Directed by Ruth Beckermann Ruth Beckermann exclusively uses archival footage to study how various media reported the events surrounding former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim’s political accession despite a controversy over his role in the Nazi regime during World War 2.
WATERGATE Directed by Charles Ferguson Charles Ferguson reopens the case of Watergate, from the 1972 break-in to Nixon’s 1974 resignation and beyond, and gives it a new and bracing life, also drawing disquieting fact-based parallels with another presidency and criminal investigation, still underway.
WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE? Directed by Roberto Minervini Shot in very sharp black and white, Minervini’s follow-up to his Texas Trilogy is a portrait of African-Americans in New Orleans struggling to maintain their unique cultural identity and to find social justice.
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SPECIAL EVENTS THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE Directed by Rex Ingram Starring: Rudolph Valentino This monumental anti-war film is a devastating tale about a divided Argentine family fighting on opposite sides during World War One. Featuring the North American premiere of a new score composed by Matthew Nolan, Sean Mac Erlaine, Adrian Crowley, Kevin Murphy, and Barry Adamson.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Directed by Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich Starring: John Huston, Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Random Almost 50 years after Orson Welles started shooting, The Other Side of the Wind, starring Huston as Jake Hannaford, an old-guard macho Hollywood director at the end of his tether, has finally been completed by Welles’s collaborators.
THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD Directed by Morgan Neville Starring: Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Steve Eccesine, Oja Kodar. Morgan Neville’s documentary proves that the story of the making of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind is as engrossing and rich in character and incident, and perhaps even more epic in scale, than the film itself.
BORDER Directed by Ali Abbasi Starring: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff Scandinavian mythology makes for a visceral fantastical drama on the mystery of identity in this adaptation of a story by Let the Right One In writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, about a troll-like customs inspector, Tina, who possesses the ability to sniff out contraband and moral corruption.
THE WILD PEAR TREE Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan Starring: Dogu Demirkol, Murat Cemcir Against the gorgeous backdrop of rolling country and idyllic farmland, Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, captures the wrenching struggles of a bright literary graduate trying to flight in a world he can’t entirely accept.
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FILMFEST FOLLOWER TELLURIDE MAIN PROGRAMME *ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT
BIRDS OF PASSAGE Directed by Cristina Callego, Ciro Guerra Starring: Natalie Reyes, Carmiña Martínez During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that end up destroying their lives and their culture.
BORDER
BOY ERASED Directed by Joel Edgerton Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton The son of a Baptist preacher is forced to participate in a church supported gay conversion programme after being forcibly outed to his parents.
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? Directed by Marielle Heller Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E Grant When Lee Israel falls out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.
* COLD WAR DESTROYER Directed by Karyn Kusama Starring: Sebastian Stan, Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell A police detective reconnects with people from an underground assignment in her distant past in order to make peace.
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DOGMAN Directed by Matteo Garrone Starring: Marcello Fonte, Edoardo Pesce Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighbourhood.
*THE FAVOURITE FIRST MAN Directed by Damien Chazelle Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke A look at the life of the astronaut Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the moon.
FISTFUL OF DIRT Directed by Sebastian Silva Starring: Modesto Lacen, Dolores Pedro In the aftermath of Hurricane Marta, 12-year-old Yei Yei struggles to adjust to every day life in his rural village after losing his home and members of his family to the deadly storm.
FREE SOLO Directed by Alex Hannold Starring Alex Hannold Follow Alex Hannold as he becomes the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000 ft high El Capitan Wall, with no ropes or safety.
THE FRONT RUNNER Directed by Jason Reitman Starring: Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, Kaitlyn Dever American Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1988 is derailed when he’s caught in a scandalous love affair.
GHOST FLEET Directed by Shannon Service, Jeffrey Waldron No Plot Given
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GIRL Directed by Lukas Dhont Starring: Victor Polster, Arieh Worthalter, Katelijne Damen Lara is a 15-year-old girl born in the body of a boy, who dreams to become a ballerina.
GRAVES WITHOUT A NAME Directed by Rithy Panh Documentary. Exploration of the lasting effects of the Cambodian genocide. A boy loses most of his family and begins a search for their graves.
THE GREAT BUSTER Directed by Peter Bogdanovich Starring: Peter Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks, Bill Hader A documentary on Buster Keaton.
MEETING GORBACHEV Directed by Werner Herzog, Andre Singer. Documentary
* NON-FICTION THE OLD MAN & THE GUN Directed by David Lowery Starring: Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek From his audacious escape from San Quentin, Forrest Tucker, at the age of 70, goes on a string of heists, which confuses the authorities and loved by the people.
* THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND PETERLOO Directed by Mike Leigh Starring: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell 1819. The Peterloo Massacre where British forces attacked a peaceful pro-democracy in Manchester.
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* ROMA * SHOPLIFTERS * THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD TRIAL BY FIRE Directed by Edward Zwick Starring: Laura Dern, Jack O’Connell, Emily Meade The tragic and controversial story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for killing his three children after scientific evidence and expert testimony told bolstered his claims of innocence were suppressed.
* WATERGATE – OR, HOW WE LEARNED TO STOP AN OUT-OF-CONTROL PRESIDENT
BACKLOT A FINAL CUT FOR ORSON: 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING Directed by Ryan Suffern The struggles of making “The Other Side of the Wind”
HUGH HEFNER’S AFTER DARK: SPEAKING OUT IN AMERICA Hefner the founder of Playboy Magazine
IT MUST SCHWING! THE BLUE NOTE STORY The title says it all.
THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS The genius of Peter Sellers.
WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL New York’s most famous film critic.
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LONDON FILM FESTIVAL SPECIAL EDITION MOVIES BY MILLS NEXT MONTH ON NOV 4
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EXTRAS DVDS OF THE MONTH ON CHESIL BEACH Directed by Dominic Cooke Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Billy Howle, Anne-Marie Duff, Adrian Scarborough It is summer 1962, and England is still a year away from huge social changes: Beatlemania, the sexual revolution and the Swinging Sixties. Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) are just married and honeymooning on the dramatic coastline of Chesil Beach in Dorset. However, the hotel is old fashioned and stifling, and underlying tensions between the young couple surface and cast unexpected shadows over their long-anticipated wedding night. On Chesil Beach is a tender story which shows how the entire course of a life can be changed simply by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.
SPECIAL FEATURES * FEATURETTE * DELETED SCENES 30
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EXTRAS DVDS OF THE MONTH THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES Granted exclusive access to hundreds of private drawings and paintings by Orson Welles, filmmaker Mark Cousins dives deep into the visual world of this legendary director and actor, to reveal a portrait of the artist as he’s never been seen before – through his own eyes, sketched with his own hand, painted with his own brush. Executive produced by Michael Moore, The Eyes of Orson Welles brings vividly to life the passions, politics and power of this brilliant 20th century showman, and explores how the genius of Welles still resonates today in the age of Trump, more than 30 years after his death.
SPECIAL FEATURES * BFI SOUTHBANK Q&A WITH DIRECTOR MARK COUSINS * THE BOOTS OF ORSON WELLES * THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES * IMAGES FROM MY PHONE CAMERA * THEATRICAL TRAILER www.moviesbymills.com
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