A still from Annemarie Jacir’s ‘Palestine 36’ courtesy of Philistine Films
The festival will open with Rian Johnson’s ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ and close with Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero’. In between, masterpieces of cinema will rule over Old Foggy for nearly two weeks.
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Among the new additions, Nadav Lapid’s absurdist tale, focusing on a struggling jazz musician tasked with reinventing the Israeli national anthem, taking place in the aftermath of October 7th, but also Lynne Ramsay’s latest, Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut and Lav Diaz’s ‘Magellan’ starring Gael Garcia Bernál as the Portuguese explorer.
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Starting right here, right now, I’m kicking off a podcast that brings together film and fashion in a brand new way, where you'll find yourself sitting in the room with celebrities and artists, for some cozy conversations. Cultural events and world affairs decoded, from Cannes to Venice to London and across the pond, to NYC.
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Clockwise from left: Walter Salles, Anna Terrazas, Darius Khondji and Lav Diaz
The list for the upcoming edition also includes César and Academy Award nominated DoP Darius Khondji, and Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To Kei-Fung.
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul talks to Richard Peña during a Qumra Masterclass
Photo courtesy of the Doha Film Institute
The great thing about an event like Qumra, the yearly industry meet-up organized by the Doha Film Institute to inspire and connect filmmakers with the world of cinema business, is that one gets to discover wonderful gems. And not only the up and coming filmmakers whose projects were featured in this fourth edition, some of which are definitely heading to Cannes! I also had the leisure to rediscover Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (‘Leviathan’ and ‘Loveless’ among others) and hear his insight during one of the six masterclasses, and actually uncover ApichatpongWeerasethakul, watch his dreamy work for the first time. And what a wonder that was! As Italian Maestro Gianfranco Rosi admitted to me later, I also remained enchanted by Weerasethakul’s ‘Emerald’ a dreamy look at a rundown motel, featuring flying particles and voiceovers, which I’m still working through and thinking about quite a few days later.
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Lav Diaz at the press conference for 'Season of the Devil' held during the 68th Berlinale
Photo courtesy of the Berlinale
When I sat with the maestro Lav Diaz for our interview for his Competition film 'Season of the Devil', he pointed to the film critics, the journalists who write about cinema, as an integral part of the filmmaking process. And I agree wholeheartedly with the genius that is Diaz, a man who, in this age of everything fast and immediate, still makes films that lull us into watching them for four and a half hours! He teaches us how to watch his cinema, and I believe as film writers, we hold a responsibility to teach audiences to find those films.
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A still featuring Noel Sto. Domingo from Lav Diaz' 'Season of the Devil'
Photo © Giovanni D. Onofrio
The 21st century version of the all-American question "where were you when JFK was assassinated?" is "what were you doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center?"
Some of us watched the towers disintegrate before our very eyes, our landscape changed forever, and it's a vision, a feeling we will carry inside our hearts for as long as we live. The smell throughout downtown Manhattan, the lines of demarcation -- complete with checkpoints -- between the northern and southern parts of the city but also the newfound sense of camaraderie we bestowed upon each other to merely get from day to day, is also what I remember from those days.
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