f i l m j o u r n e y . o r g

“When I studied, I met a filmmaker who decided for me, in a way , what I was going to become. It was Armand Gatti who brought us together.” –Jean-Pierre Dardenne at his 2009 Cannes masterclass
“Film is a system that allows Godard to be a novelist, Gatti to make theater, and me to [...]

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If last week seemed like a windfall for Chris Marker, this week the torch has been passed to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Tuesday at Cannes, the Belgian filmmakers gave a truly fascinating two-hour masterclass that is already available online, which features extended discussions of key scenes in each of their films. The brothers’ [...]

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Last week, Icarus Films released the latest DVD in their excellent Chris Marker series, A Grin Without a Cat (originally released in 1977 but shortened with an added coda in ‘93). Not only is this one of his most acclaimed documentaries, summarizing the decade of the New Left worldwide as well as his own [...]

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A cemetery mound initiates a conical motif in Oshima’s Boy.
The new retrospective of Nagisa Oshima–widely regarded among experts as the most important filmmaker of the Japanese New Wave–is currently poised between its Los Angeles hosts, the American Cinematheque and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; LACMA begins its half of the series tonight with [...]

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The Los Angeles Film Festival announced its line-up today, and any fears that its new director might steer the festival–with its solid line-up several years running–in an untoward direction have been put to rest. Some of the highlights follow.
The latest edition of the always excellent “The Films That Got Away” series programmed by the [...]

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Last weekend, LACMA screened the new print of Chantal Akerman’s riveting portrait of life as a series of imprisoning rituals, Jeanne Dielman: 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), a film that charts the actions of a matronly widow (Delphine Seyrig)–and covert prostitute–as she performs house chores and errands over a three day period. [...]

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Robert Koehler has been a longtime supporter of–and occasional contributor to–Film Journey, and I have written many times of my respect and admiration for Rose Kuo, who has transformed AFI FEST in Los Angeles the past couple of years into a major festival for world cinema, so I’m delighted to quote Variety’s announcement yesterday:

“Robert Koehler, [...]

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My favorite animated feature last year, the undistributed Sita Sings the Blues, created almost entirely in Flash by Nina Paley, has become Thirteen.org’s first feature to be streamed in its entirety on their website. The film has been idling in legal limbo for many months because of its use of 80-year-old pop songs Paley [...]

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I understand that the rainy season in Los Angeles extends through March, and that temperatures quickly rise after June Gloom burns off, but as a devotee of the many smaller ethnic/national film festivals in the city, I’m distressed that so many of them have chosen April as their play date. Los Angeles famously could [...]

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La Promesse
I was asked to contribute a chapter in a new book from Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the UK, Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, edited by Kenneth R. Morefield. Faith and spirituality are large and ambiguous topics, of course, but they’re frequently reduced to marketing terms for niche publishing groups, something [...]

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