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Bitter Christmas review – grief, loss and artistic betrayal in Almodóvar’s film within a film

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Cannes film festival: Spaniard’s latest life-v-art auto-metafiction feels slightly muddled as he directs a director directing a director With its rich, warm, summery colours, nothing could surely be less bitter or less Christmassy than this film. It’s the latest from Cannes competition regular Pedro Almodóvar, partly set during Christmas; the female lead actually complains about the yuletide traffic at one stage. But there’s no tinsel or sleigh bells or shopping for presents. Like Die Hard, it eludes classification. It is another – which is to say, yet another – double-layered creation by Almodóvar, a kind of movie auto-metafiction of the sort that he has virtually invented, a life-v-art dialectical process that he is evidently unable to do without. Like the recent Pain and Glory , Bitter Christmas is a candidly personal movie, circling around ideas like grief, loss, the vampirism of art and the betrayal involved in basing fictional characters on real people. Perhaps by emphasising thi...
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Alia Bhatt and Sharvari shoot with Samay Raina for India’s Got Latent Season 2 in viral photo

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A viral picture featuring Alia Bhatt, Sharvari and comedian Samay Raina has taken social media by storm, sparking widespread speculation around the return of India’s Got Latent. The photos, reportedly clicked at The Habitat in Mumbai, have led fans to believe that the actresses may be appearing as part of the promotional campaign for their upcoming spy-universe film Alpha. While there has been no official confirmation from the makers or the actors involved, the viral images have already triggered intense discussions online. Many fans appeared excited at the possibility of seeing Alia and Sharvari participate in Samay Raina’s popular digital talent-roast format, especially given the enormous online popularity the show achieved after its launch in 2024. Created by Samay Raina, India’s Got Latent quickly became one of the most talked-about digital shows in the country due to its unfiltered humour, unpredictable format, and viral guest interactions. However, the show also attracted contro...
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True North review – students take stand against racism in highly charged account of protest in 60s Canada

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Interviews and archive material are elegantly stitched together in this look at a huge student uprising in 1969 Quebec If someone mentions race riots and student protests in the 1960s and 70s, chances are that would mean, to most people, civil rights protests in the American south, sit-ins in California or the National Guard opening fire on students at Kent State University in Ohio. But revolution and resistance were ideas that crossed borders and seeded outbreaks all over the world, and supposedly friendly, polite countries such as Canada had no special immunity. This elegantly crafted documentary, directed by Michèle Stephenson, recounts a charged moment in Quebec history in 1969 when black students at Sir George Williams University, now called Concordia University, staged what would become the biggest campus protest in Canadian history; it resulted in scores of arrests and about C$2m in property damage due to fire destroying a computer lab. Interviews with several of the protest’s k...
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Fjord review - Cristian Mungiu at sea with strange child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan

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Cannes film festival: The Palme laureate here makes a misstep with an odd, disquieting film that leaves too many issues unresolved Romanian director and Palme laureate Cristian Mungiu – the winner here in 2007 with his stunning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – comes to Cannes with an anticlimactic, underpowered movie which it seems to me could be part of an odd phenomenon at this year’s festival, detectable also in films here by Kantemir Balagov and Ryusuke Hamaguchi: auteurs making coproduction movies outside their home turf and mother tongue with big foreign stars, perhaps as a result of creative conversations at international film festivals with admirers from all over the world – and losing focus. Fjord is an odd film, bearing Mungiu’s signature, certainly, with enigmatic long shots and avoidance of closeups, and one very distinctive crowding of faces in a dinner-scene tableau. But the ostensible pain and trauma of its story is conveyed without the rewarding complexity that we have...
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‘An orgy of antisemitism is overtaking the west’: Son of Saul’s László Nemes on Hollywood hypocrisy

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His extraordinary Auschwitz film won every award going. Now the Hungarian director is back with new drama Orphan, as well as a Jean Moulin biopic at Cannes. He talks about resurgent global prejudice – and refusing to be lectured by the film industry ‘overclass’ We’ve been talking for less than five minutes when I spot the swastika. It’s just above the head of László Nemes, one of Europe’s most acclaimed directors, as he sits in the suite of a London hotel, talking about Orphan, his intensely personal new film that dwells on – among other things – the impact of the Holocaust on the generations that followed. It’s an ancient, Hindu swastika, part of a decorative wall-hanging – but still. I’m halfway through a question when I notice it. Nemes laughs; of course, he’d seen it immediately. “I wanted to point that out to you,” he says. “It is so funny. Before leaving this room, I will take pictures.” Mind you, he’s had worse. “When I was at the San Sebastián film festival with Son of Saul , t...
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BREAKING: Cocktail 2 trailer to be launched on May 29; media gets EXCLUSIVE glimpse of foot-tapping track ‘Mashooka’ and soulful number ‘Tujhko’

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A fun event was hosted by the Cocktail 2 team at a premium restobar in central Mumbai on Sunday, May 17, and was attended by Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Rashmika Mandanna, producers Dinesh Vijan and Luv Ranjan, director Homi Adajania and music director Pritam Chakraborty. The media was invited to the bash with the promise of a surprise. The surprise turned out to be an exclusive preview of two songs from the film – ‘Mashooka’ and ‘Tujhko’. ‘Mashooka’ features Shahid Kapoor romancing Kriti Sanon in Sicily, Italy, and other picturesque locations. The foot-tapping number sees the duo in a playful, goofy mood before ending with a seductive dance sequence. ‘Tujhko’, meanwhile, is sung by Arijit Singh and focuses on Shahid Kapoor and Rashmika Mandanna. The slow romantic number hints that the two characters were college sweethearts before circumstances pulled them apart. After both songs were unveiled, the media was asked to decide which one should release first. Initially, the journalists w...
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France’s top film producer says it will blacklist figures who petitioned against rightwing billionaire

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Canal+ head says he will not work with hundreds of actors and directors who signed protest against Vincent Bolloré’s political sway The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. The open letter, published earlier this week to coincide with the opening of the Cannes film festival, was signed by more than 600 figures , including the actor-director Juliette Binoche, the director and photographer Raymond Depardon, the French-Iranian film-maker Sepideh Farsi and the director Arthur Harari , who co-wrote the Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall and is premiering his film The Unknown in the main competition in Cannes. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/y3L0r7x via IFTTT
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EXCLUSIVE: Amid UAE ban and PIL controversy, Sanjay Dutt starrer Aakhri Sawal heads for special screening at Rashtrapati Bhavan today

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In a major development surrounding one of the year’s most talked-about films, Sanjay Dutt starrer Aakhri Sawal is set to hold a special screening at Rashtrapati Bhavan today, Bollywood Hungama has exclusively learned. The screening comes amid mounting controversy around the film. Over the past few days, Aakhri Sawal has been making headlines after reports surfaced of the film being banned in the UAE, while a PIL was also reportedly filed against the project in India. Despite the storm surrounding the film, the makers appear unfazed and are moving ahead with an aggressive rollout strategy. Sources close to the development reveal that preparations for the Rashtrapati Bhavan screening have been underway quietly over the last few days, though details regarding the guest list and attendees remain under wraps. Directed as a hard-hitting social drama, Aakhri Sawal features an ensemble cast led by Sanjay Dutt, the film has already generated substantial curiosity because of its subject matter ...
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EXCLUSIVE: T-Series gears up to announce Satranga, a grand musical spectacle in the making

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Something big is brewing at T-Series. Bollywood Hungama has exclusively learned that the Bhushan Kumar-led powerhouse is preparing to announce a brand-new film titled Satranga, described by insiders as a large-scale musical drama mounted on an ambitious cinematic canvas. While an official announcement is expected soon, the project has already begun generating strong buzz within industry circles. Sources close to the development reveal that Satranga is being envisioned as more than just a conventional musical romance. The film is said to be a sweeping emotional spectacle where music forms the very backbone of the storytelling. According to sources, the script is nearly locked, indicating that the creative groundwork is firmly in place. The makers are now focused on assembling the cast, which has not yet been finalized. Given the scale of the project and T-Series’ long-standing relationships with Bollywood’s biggest stars, expectations around the eventual casting are already high. Known...
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John Lennon: The Last Interview review – Soderbergh imagines there’s no people with bland AI clipshow

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Succession of pointless AI-generated snippets does nothing for film about the artist’s final interview, which took place on the day of his murder Coming just after his superb feature The Christophers , Steven Soderbergh has now made a surprisingly moderate documentary, dominated and frankly marred by uninteresting and pointless AI. It is about the inadvertently poignant final interview given by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on 8 December 1980 in New York’s Dakota apartment building, hours before his death. The interviewers were Dave Sholin, Laurie Kaye and Ron Hummel from San Francisco’s KFRC radio station. On their way out of the building with the conversation on tape, they were accosted by a creepy stalker-fan; in attempt to calm the man down, Kaye gave him a brand new copy of John and Yoko’s new album Double Fantasy. This sinister man was Lennon’s future murderer who got him to sign an album – perhaps this very album – and later shot him dead. It is a chilling, stomach-turning twist of f...
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