Wenige Tage vor deren Eröffnung am 5. Juni hat das Sydney Film Festival jetzt weitere Titel, die in diesem Jahr auf dem Festival de Cannes gelaufen waren, zu seiner 71. Ausgabe eingeladen.
Von Cannes nach Sydney: Mohammad Rasulofs „The Seed of the Sacred Fig“ (Credit: Festival de Cannes)
Neben Coralie Fargeats „The Substance”, der beim Festival de Cannes vor gut einer Woche für das beste Drehbuch ausgezeichnet worden war und bereits für den Abschluss des Sydney Film Festival am 16. Juni feststand, hat das Festival jetzt weitere Cannes-Titel zu seiner am 5. Juni beginnenden 71. Ausgabe eingeladen.
So wird in Sydney „The Seed of The Sacred Fig“, der in Cannes unter Standing Ovations für den kurz zuvor nach einer Verurteilung aus seinem Heimatland geflohenen Regisseur Mohammad Rasoulof seine Weltpremiere gefeiert hatte und mit dem Spezialpreis der Jury und dem Fipresci-Preis ausgezeichnet worden war, in Sydney zu sehen sein.
Ebenfalls auf das Festival eingeladen wurden jetzt...
Von Cannes nach Sydney: Mohammad Rasulofs „The Seed of the Sacred Fig“ (Credit: Festival de Cannes)
Neben Coralie Fargeats „The Substance”, der beim Festival de Cannes vor gut einer Woche für das beste Drehbuch ausgezeichnet worden war und bereits für den Abschluss des Sydney Film Festival am 16. Juni feststand, hat das Festival jetzt weitere Cannes-Titel zu seiner am 5. Juni beginnenden 71. Ausgabe eingeladen.
So wird in Sydney „The Seed of The Sacred Fig“, der in Cannes unter Standing Ovations für den kurz zuvor nach einer Verurteilung aus seinem Heimatland geflohenen Regisseur Mohammad Rasoulof seine Weltpremiere gefeiert hatte und mit dem Spezialpreis der Jury und dem Fipresci-Preis ausgezeichnet worden war, in Sydney zu sehen sein.
Ebenfalls auf das Festival eingeladen wurden jetzt...
- 6/3/2024
- by Jochen Müller
- Spot - Media & Film
Sydney Film Festival has added several titles to its line-up that played at Cannes last month, including award winners The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Black Dog.
The 71st edition of the festival, which opens on Wednesday (June 5) and runs until June 16, previously announced it will close with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, which played in Competition at Cannes and won the prize for best screenplay.
The new additions include Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, which also played in Competition and won the jury special prize and Fipresci award, and Guan Hu’s Black Dog,...
The 71st edition of the festival, which opens on Wednesday (June 5) and runs until June 16, previously announced it will close with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, which played in Competition at Cannes and won the prize for best screenplay.
The new additions include Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, which also played in Competition and won the jury special prize and Fipresci award, and Guan Hu’s Black Dog,...
- 6/3/2024
- ScreenDaily
Cannes-do
The imminently upcoming Sydney Film Festival has added eight titles that premiered at Cannes to its lineup. They are: Guan Hu’s “Black Dog”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project “Megalopolis”; Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson’s “Rumours,” starring Australia’s Cate Blanchett; documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; “The Girl with the Needle”; and revenge thriller “Ghost Trail.”
Due to demand, the Sff organizers have also added additional screenings of “The Substance,” the Demi Moore-starring film already set as the festival’s closing night title. The festival runs June 5-16.
Filmmaker On The Move
Nishikawa Miwa, the Japanese director behind “The Long Excuse” (2016) and “Under the Open Sky” (2021), has been set as the mentor to the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Teens Meet Cinema, film production workshop for teenagers. Selected...
The imminently upcoming Sydney Film Festival has added eight titles that premiered at Cannes to its lineup. They are: Guan Hu’s “Black Dog”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project “Megalopolis”; Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson’s “Rumours,” starring Australia’s Cate Blanchett; documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; “The Girl with the Needle”; and revenge thriller “Ghost Trail.”
Due to demand, the Sff organizers have also added additional screenings of “The Substance,” the Demi Moore-starring film already set as the festival’s closing night title. The festival runs June 5-16.
Filmmaker On The Move
Nishikawa Miwa, the Japanese director behind “The Long Excuse” (2016) and “Under the Open Sky” (2021), has been set as the mentor to the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Teens Meet Cinema, film production workshop for teenagers. Selected...
- 6/3/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The Un Certain Regard jury of five in Xavier Dolan, Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy offered a total of seven awards/mentions this year and as per our tradition, we were front row at the ceremony on the day before the closing of the 77th edition. This year, it is sixth generation Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu who landed the top prize of the section with Black Dog. Of the eighteen feature films in competition, a total of eight were up for the running for the Caméra d’or (Best Debut Feature) which was also claimed by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel’s Armand.…...
- 6/1/2024
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
from our special envoy Jean-Marc Thérouanne at the Cannes Film Festival.
From May 14 to 25, 2024, Far East Asia is represented in competition by the film “Caught by the Tides” by the master of Chinese cinema of the sixth generation, Jia Zhang-ke. This film, in small impressionist touches, tells the evolution of China in this first quarter of the 21st century. Jia Zhang-ke tries to describe it through the songs marking the collective memory. He multiplies the winks to his work of fifteen films, time markers flowing inexorably.
Jia Zhang-ke and Zhao Tao in Grand Théâtre Lumiere Gala presentation of Caught by the Tides. (Photo credit Fica)
The Indian subcontinent is back in competition, after a long 30-year eclipse, with the film All We Imagine As Light by director Payal Kapadia, recognized in Cannes by the Golden Eye Award for his documentary film Une nuit sans savoir selected at the Directors' Fortnight...
From May 14 to 25, 2024, Far East Asia is represented in competition by the film “Caught by the Tides” by the master of Chinese cinema of the sixth generation, Jia Zhang-ke. This film, in small impressionist touches, tells the evolution of China in this first quarter of the 21st century. Jia Zhang-ke tries to describe it through the songs marking the collective memory. He multiplies the winks to his work of fifteen films, time markers flowing inexorably.
Jia Zhang-ke and Zhao Tao in Grand Théâtre Lumiere Gala presentation of Caught by the Tides. (Photo credit Fica)
The Indian subcontinent is back in competition, after a long 30-year eclipse, with the film All We Imagine As Light by director Payal Kapadia, recognized in Cannes by the Golden Eye Award for his documentary film Une nuit sans savoir selected at the Directors' Fortnight...
- 6/1/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
In the derelict, scraggly city in northwest China where Guan Hu’s Black Dog is set, human life has all but disappeared and canines have replaced their masters. The year is 2008, a few weeks before the kick-off to the Beijing Summer Olympics, but the capital feels so distant in time and space that when a mural honoring the event pops up, the paint is so sun-bleached you’d be forgiven for thinking the Games were over by a few decades. Oil was tucked deep under the nearby hills until the reserves dried up and workers left––one of many migration waves that turned this unnamed corner at the edge of the Gobi Desert into an arid ghost town presided by the pets its former residents left behind. Dogs are everywhere you look; from the barren expanses that ring the city down to its maze of abandoned buildings, they roam this...
- 5/30/2024
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
Matthieu Laclau is a French editor who has been working in China and Taiwan since 2008. His collaboration with director Jia Zhangke in A Touch of Sin won him Best Film Editing at the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan’s equivalent to the Oscars. This year he edited three films in Cannes: Caught by the Tides in Competition, Black Dog in Un Certain Regard, and Meeting with Pol Pot in Cannes Premiere. We sat down with him during the festival and discussed his work on all three films. This interview is originally commissioned by Directube 导筒. The Chinese version will be published on Directube later.
The Film Stage: First, I want to congratulate you for having three films in the Official Selection at this year’s Cannes. How did you get involved with all three? Obviously, you worked with Jia Zhangke since A Touch of Sin but it’s your first time...
The Film Stage: First, I want to congratulate you for having three films in the Official Selection at this year’s Cannes. How did you get involved with all three? Obviously, you worked with Jia Zhangke since A Touch of Sin but it’s your first time...
- 5/30/2024
- by Frank Yan
- The Film Stage
The Shanghai International Film Festival has unveiled a selection that is weighted heavily to world premieres and Chinese, local titles.
That gives the festival showcase screenings for the newest works by established Chinese directors Gu Changwei, Wei Shujun and Guan Hu (“Old Fish”).
Guan was rewarded in Cannes only last week for his Un Certain Regard-winning picture “Black Dog,” but will unveil his next effort “The Hedgehog in Shanghai’s main competition.
All but two of the 14 competition section films are world premiere screenings – only “Un Homme en Fuite” recently released in France, and “Le Seconda Vita,” recently released in Italy are international premieres – and all 11 films selected in the Asian New Talent Competition are debut screenings.
That makes the Shanghai lineup have little in common with other international festivals being held at this time of year. Most of those, typically, find house room for a sprinkling of standout titles from Sundance,...
That gives the festival showcase screenings for the newest works by established Chinese directors Gu Changwei, Wei Shujun and Guan Hu (“Old Fish”).
Guan was rewarded in Cannes only last week for his Un Certain Regard-winning picture “Black Dog,” but will unveil his next effort “The Hedgehog in Shanghai’s main competition.
All but two of the 14 competition section films are world premiere screenings – only “Un Homme en Fuite” recently released in France, and “Le Seconda Vita,” recently released in Italy are international premieres – and all 11 films selected in the Asian New Talent Competition are debut screenings.
That makes the Shanghai lineup have little in common with other international festivals being held at this time of year. Most of those, typically, find house room for a sprinkling of standout titles from Sundance,...
- 5/30/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The latest films by acclaimed Chinese directors Guan Hu, Wei Shujun, Gu Changwei and Zhang Dalei are among 14 features selected for the main competition at the upcoming 26th Shanghai International Film Festival.
The festival has announced a total of 50 films in contention for the Golden Goblet Awards, which further include 11 titles for the Asian New Talent competition, five each for the animated feature and documentary feature competition, and 15 for the short film competition. Between them are 38 world premieres – a new record for Siff – as well as six international premieres and six Asian premieres.
The main competition section carries four Chinese titles,...
The festival has announced a total of 50 films in contention for the Golden Goblet Awards, which further include 11 titles for the Asian New Talent competition, five each for the animated feature and documentary feature competition, and 15 for the short film competition. Between them are 38 world premieres – a new record for Siff – as well as six international premieres and six Asian premieres.
The main competition section carries four Chinese titles,...
- 5/30/2024
- ScreenDaily
The Shanghai International Film Festival unveiled the competition selection for its upcoming 26th edition Wednesday, featuring a lineup characteristically heavy on Chinese titles. As in recent years, the lineup also includes a bevy of European, Japanese and Central Asian movies, but not a single film from the U.S. or South Korea.
The most anticipated film from the festival’s 14-title main competition in 2024 is undoubtedly Chinese director Guan Hu’s drama A Man and a Woman, featuring a pair of lead performances from the big local stars Huang Bo and Ni Ni. Guan wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival just a week ago with his darkly comic thriller Black Dog, which took home the French festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard prize. Guan also is no stranger to the Shanghai festival. His WWII tentpole The Eight Hundred was scheduled to open the 2019 edition of the event, but it...
The most anticipated film from the festival’s 14-title main competition in 2024 is undoubtedly Chinese director Guan Hu’s drama A Man and a Woman, featuring a pair of lead performances from the big local stars Huang Bo and Ni Ni. Guan wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival just a week ago with his darkly comic thriller Black Dog, which took home the French festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard prize. Guan also is no stranger to the Shanghai festival. His WWII tentpole The Eight Hundred was scheduled to open the 2019 edition of the event, but it...
- 5/30/2024
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It is always a nice surprise when someone very talented and famous also turns out to be a very pleasant, down to earth person, and that is the case with Eddie Peng, the Taiwanese superstar whose career spans over two decades. His success didn't happen over night though, and it took his collaboration with Ann Hui on two titles to prove the versatility of his acting performance: war drama set up in the 1940s “Our Time Will Come” (2017), and romance “Love After Love” (2020). Already before this international breakthrough, Peng had a huge teenage following due to the success of Yang Daqing's TV series adaptation of the popular manga “Tomorrow” (2002). One could say that he was never shy of testing his acting capabilities by diving into diverse projects from romantic comedies and dramas, to adrenaline pumped action movies, which made him one of the most popular actors on the Asian continent.
- 5/29/2024
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
Chinese director Guan Hu’s visually stunning new feature, Black Dog, starts off with a familiar premise: After spending a decade behind bars, an ex-con named Lang (Eddie Peng) returns to his tiny native city in Northwest China on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert. He tries to integrate into regular life, but certain demons from his past come back to haunt him.
If this sounds like any number of throwaway B-movies, or like the plot of the recent Sylvester Stallone series Tulsa King, be advised that Black Dog is not that kind of thing at all. First off, it’s unclear who, exactly, the title is referring to. Is it the film’s total outcast of a protagonist, who barely utters a full sentence to anyone — including his own father — as he attempts to settle into a place that doesn’t want him? Or is it the stray black greyhound he meets in town,...
If this sounds like any number of throwaway B-movies, or like the plot of the recent Sylvester Stallone series Tulsa King, be advised that Black Dog is not that kind of thing at all. First off, it’s unclear who, exactly, the title is referring to. Is it the film’s total outcast of a protagonist, who barely utters a full sentence to anyone — including his own father — as he attempts to settle into a place that doesn’t want him? Or is it the stray black greyhound he meets in town,...
- 5/28/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ioncinema.com’s Chief Film Critic Nicholas Bell reviewed the entire competition and more. Here is a comprehensive guide to all the feature films across all sections, including logged reviews and forthcoming ones. Though Cannes might be over, we still have unpublished reviews that will be released over the next month.
In Competition:
All We Imagine as Light – [Review]
Anora – [Review]
The Apprentice – [Review]
Beating Hearts – [Review]
Bird – [Review]
Caught by the Tides – [Review]
Emilia Pérez – [Review]
The Girl with the Needle – [Review]
Grand Tour – [Review]
Kinds of Kindness – [Review]
Limonov: The Ballad – [Review]
Marcello Mio – [Review]
Megalopolis – [Review]
The Most Precious of Cargoes – [Review]
Motel Destino – [Review]
Oh, Canada – [Review]
Parthenope – [Review]
The Seed of the Sacred Fig – [Review]
The Shrouds – [Review]
The Substance – [Review]
Three Kilometres to the End of the World – [Review]
Wild Diamond – [Review]
Un Certain Regard:
Armand
Black Dog
The Damned – [Review]
Dog on Trial
Flow
Holy Cow – [Review]
The Kingdom
My Sunshine
Niki
Norah
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Santosh
September Says
The Shameless
The Story of Souleymane...
In Competition:
All We Imagine as Light – [Review]
Anora – [Review]
The Apprentice – [Review]
Beating Hearts – [Review]
Bird – [Review]
Caught by the Tides – [Review]
Emilia Pérez – [Review]
The Girl with the Needle – [Review]
Grand Tour – [Review]
Kinds of Kindness – [Review]
Limonov: The Ballad – [Review]
Marcello Mio – [Review]
Megalopolis – [Review]
The Most Precious of Cargoes – [Review]
Motel Destino – [Review]
Oh, Canada – [Review]
Parthenope – [Review]
The Seed of the Sacred Fig – [Review]
The Shrouds – [Review]
The Substance – [Review]
Three Kilometres to the End of the World – [Review]
Wild Diamond – [Review]
Un Certain Regard:
Armand
Black Dog
The Damned – [Review]
Dog on Trial
Flow
Holy Cow – [Review]
The Kingdom
My Sunshine
Niki
Norah
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Santosh
September Says
The Shameless
The Story of Souleymane...
- 5/28/2024
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival has now concluded, with Sean Baker’s Anora taking home the Palme d’Or. While our coverage will continue with a few more reviews this week––and far beyond as we provide updates on the journey of these selections––we’ve asked our contributors on the ground to share favorites.
See their picks below, and explore all of our coverage here.
Leonardo Goi (@LeonardoGoi)
1. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
2. All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
3. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
4. Anora (Sean Baker)
5. Eephus (Carson Lund)
6. Viet And Nam (Trương Minh Quý)
7. Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point (Tyler Taormina)
8. Black Dog (Guan Hu)
9. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
10. Good One (India Donaldson)
Read all of Leonardo’s reviews here.
Luke Hicks (@lou_hicks)
1. Anora (Sean Baker)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
3. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)
4. Viet and Nam (Trương Minh Quý)
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig...
See their picks below, and explore all of our coverage here.
Leonardo Goi (@LeonardoGoi)
1. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
2. All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
3. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
4. Anora (Sean Baker)
5. Eephus (Carson Lund)
6. Viet And Nam (Trương Minh Quý)
7. Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point (Tyler Taormina)
8. Black Dog (Guan Hu)
9. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
10. Good One (India Donaldson)
Read all of Leonardo’s reviews here.
Luke Hicks (@lou_hicks)
1. Anora (Sean Baker)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
3. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)
4. Viet and Nam (Trương Minh Quý)
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig...
- 5/27/2024
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival concludes today with the Closing Ceremony and presentation of the coveted award, the Palme d’Or which was awarded to Sean Baker’s Anora, on Saturday, May 25.
The Jury, chaired by director Greta Gerwig was tasked with awarding the Palme d’Or to one of the 22 films in the Competition.
Related: Cannes Film Festival: ‘Anora’ Wins Palme D’Or; ‘All We Imagine As Light’ Takes Grand Prize; ‘Emilia Perez’ Jury Prize & Best Actresses
The jury included Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, American actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green and Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, as well as Spanish director and screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino, Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, and French actor and producer Omar Sy.
Related: ‘Emilia Pérez’ Cannes Film Festival Premiere Photos: Édgar Ramírez, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña & More
Hu Guan’s drama Black Dog...
The Jury, chaired by director Greta Gerwig was tasked with awarding the Palme d’Or to one of the 22 films in the Competition.
Related: Cannes Film Festival: ‘Anora’ Wins Palme D’Or; ‘All We Imagine As Light’ Takes Grand Prize; ‘Emilia Perez’ Jury Prize & Best Actresses
The jury included Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, American actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green and Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, as well as Spanish director and screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino, Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, and French actor and producer Omar Sy.
Related: ‘Emilia Pérez’ Cannes Film Festival Premiere Photos: Édgar Ramírez, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña & More
Hu Guan’s drama Black Dog...
- 5/25/2024
- by Robert Lang
- Deadline Film + TV
The hype out of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, for those far-flung and on the ground, tells one story: This was among the weaker lineups in recent memory.
Sure, huge stories broke out of the festival, from Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution push for his self-funded, decades-in-the-making passion project “Megalopolis” to Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fleeing his home country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, finally making it to Cannes with his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” This journey inspired the jury to award him and his film a Special Prize (Prix Spécial).
Elsewhere in the official selection, Un Certain Regard already handed out its prizes on Friday from a jury led by Xavier Dolan and including Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy. Among the top winners were Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”) and Rungano Nyoni (“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”) tying for Best Director,...
Sure, huge stories broke out of the festival, from Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution push for his self-funded, decades-in-the-making passion project “Megalopolis” to Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fleeing his home country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, finally making it to Cannes with his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” This journey inspired the jury to award him and his film a Special Prize (Prix Spécial).
Elsewhere in the official selection, Un Certain Regard already handed out its prizes on Friday from a jury led by Xavier Dolan and including Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy. Among the top winners were Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”) and Rungano Nyoni (“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”) tying for Best Director,...
- 5/25/2024
- by Harrison Richlin
- Indiewire
Chinese director Hu Guan’s drama Black Dog won the top prize in Cannes Un Certain Regard on Friday evening.
The Jury Prize went to Boris Lojkine’s Paris-set asylum-seeker tale The Story Of Souleymane.
Best Director went to in ex aequo to Roberto Minervini for U.S. civil war drama The Damned and Rungano Nyoni for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.
The Performance award went to Anasuya Sengupta for her performance as a young sex worker on the run in Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s India-set drama The Shameless, and Abou Sangare for his performance in Boris Lojkine’s The Story Of Souleymane as a young asylum seeker.
In other prizes, French director Louise Courvoisier won the Youth Prize for Holy Cow, while Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi was feted with a Special Mention for Nora.
This year’s jury was presided over by Canadian actor, director, screenwriter and producer Xavier Dolan,...
The Jury Prize went to Boris Lojkine’s Paris-set asylum-seeker tale The Story Of Souleymane.
Best Director went to in ex aequo to Roberto Minervini for U.S. civil war drama The Damned and Rungano Nyoni for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.
The Performance award went to Anasuya Sengupta for her performance as a young sex worker on the run in Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s India-set drama The Shameless, and Abou Sangare for his performance in Boris Lojkine’s The Story Of Souleymane as a young asylum seeker.
In other prizes, French director Louise Courvoisier won the Youth Prize for Holy Cow, while Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi was feted with a Special Mention for Nora.
This year’s jury was presided over by Canadian actor, director, screenwriter and producer Xavier Dolan,...
- 5/24/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Exactly ten years after the genre-mixing, canine-driven Hungarian thriller “White God” landed the Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, this year’s ceremony culminated in the same prize going to a somewhat corresponding title: Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” a fusion of western, film noir and offbeat comedy with a highly lovable mutt at its center. The film, about a damaged loner returning to his desert hometown after a spell in prison and finding a kindred spirit in an equally world-weary greyhound, beat 17 other titles to take the top prize in the festival’s second-most prestigious competitive section. (The festival’s Official Competition awards will be handed out tomorrow night.)
Jury president Xavier Dolan, the actor-auteur behind such films as “Mommy” and “Laurence Anyways,” commended Guan’s film for “its breathtaking poetry, its imagination, its precision [and] its masterful direction.” He echoed the enthusiasm of Variety critic Jessica Kiang,...
Jury president Xavier Dolan, the actor-auteur behind such films as “Mommy” and “Laurence Anyways,” commended Guan’s film for “its breathtaking poetry, its imagination, its precision [and] its masterful direction.” He echoed the enthusiasm of Variety critic Jessica Kiang,...
- 5/24/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
You might not get the dog you want, but you always get the dog you need. That old dog-lover’s adage applies peculiarly well to Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog.” A far smaller-scale project than his recent blockbusters “The Eight Hundred” and “The Sacrifice,” Guan’s latest — an Un Certain Regard standout at Cannes this year — nonetheless has the grandly cinematic vision to lend an intimate tale a gloriously epic, allegorical edge.
Set in a dying town on the fringes of the Gobi desert, “Black Dog” has elements of the genre western, like taciturn loner antihero Lang (a fantastic Eddie Peng), who returns to his eroded hometown himself hollowed out by repressed guilt for the incident that caused his recent imprisonment. But, dipped in the caustic soda of social commentary and steeped in the fatalistic mood of a place barely chugging by on borrowed time, the film also...
Set in a dying town on the fringes of the Gobi desert, “Black Dog” has elements of the genre western, like taciturn loner antihero Lang (a fantastic Eddie Peng), who returns to his eroded hometown himself hollowed out by repressed guilt for the incident that caused his recent imprisonment. But, dipped in the caustic soda of social commentary and steeped in the fatalistic mood of a place barely chugging by on borrowed time, the film also...
- 5/21/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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