Starring Cynthia Erivo and Alia Shawkat, the upcoming indie drama, “Drift,” a film by filmmaker Anthony Chen (“Ilo Ilo“), from the producers of “Call Me By Your Name” and “Nomadland” opens in early 2024. Two-time Academy Award nominee Erivo stars as Jacqueline, a woman who escapes her war-torn country to a Greek island. There, she meets an unmoored tour guide and the two become close as they each find hope in the other.

Continue reading ‘Drift’ Trailer: Cynthia Erivo’s Acclaimed Sundance Film Opens In February 2024 at The Playlist.

In 2013, filmmaker Anthony Chen’s first feature, “Ilo Ilo,” won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Centered around the inseparable bond between a 10-year-old Singaporean boy and his Filipina nanny, Chen’s full-length debut deployed a specific lens — a family weathering the 1997 Asian financial crisis — to tell a universal story exploring the nooks and crannies of our shared humanity. Flash forward to exactly a decade later, Chen makes his triumphant return to Cannes (in the Un Certain Regard section) with “The Breaking Ice,” a moving, humanist snapshot of China’s lost youths told through a ships-in-the-night friendship.

Continue reading ‘The Breaking Ice’ Review: Anthony Chen’s Long-Awaited Return To Cannes Is A Humanist Triumph at The Playlist.

Based on the 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift” by Alexander Maksik, set just after the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, “Drift” aims for impressionistic insight but is ultimately manipulative and reductive. Maksik’s screenplay, which he co-wrote with Susanne Farrell, sees its heroine Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet”) as nothing more than a vessel to explore an outsider’s view of the trauma inflicted by war.

Continue reading ‘Drift’ Review: Cynthia Erivo Stars In An Impressionistic, But Hollow Refugee Drama [Sundance] at The Playlist.

The Robert Bresson quote that opens the anthology film “Year of the Everlasting Storm” — “you don’t create by adding, but by taking away” — makes a tidy adage of the time-honored idea that deprivation breeds innovation. Just as the signees of the Dogme 95 Manifesto believed that restricting themselves along various formal guidelines would enforce a newfound authenticity in their work, the seven directors contributing to this omnibus operate under the premise that the obstructions of the COVID-19 era could be more boon than bane, compelling them to get crafty and dig deeper.

Continue reading ‘Year Of The Everlasting Storm’: Neon’s Anthology Film Features Auteurs Jafar Panahi, Laura Poitras, David Lowery & More [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Another Cannes Film Festival line-up announcement, another new round of trailers. Now, we’ve got the first look at Neon’s “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” an anthology feature featuring seven stories told by an internationally acclaimed roster: filmmakers Jafar Panâhi, Anthony Chen, Malik Vitthal, Laura Poitras, Dominga Sotomayor, David Lowery, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.  

READ MORE: Sean Baker, Andrea Arnold, Mia Hanson-Love, Asghar Farhadi New Films Announced For 2021 Cannes Film Festival

No real word on who stars in what short, other from what you can glean in the trailer, but here’s the official synopsis:

READ MORE: Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To
Watch

Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles this unprecedented moment in time and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers.

Continue reading ‘The Year Of The Everlasting Storm’ Trailer: Cannes-Bound Anthology Features 7 Stories Told By Jafar Panahi, David Lowery, Apichatpong Weerasethakul & More at The Playlist.

There have been a surprising number of pandemic films that have been released over the last year. In a world where people were on lockdown with very little to do outside of their homes, it seems as if some filmmakers have been able to use that time to still create films. Whether that’s the various short films from folks like David F. Sandberg, Spike Lee, amongst others or fully-produced features like Shudder’s surprisingly great “Host” or the dreadful, Michael Bay-produced thriller, “Songbird.” And over at NEON, the studio decided to go a different route with the studio’s upcoming feature, “The Year of the Everlasting Storm.”

READ MORE: Hollywood Studios Have Little New To Sneak At Big Screen Is Back Event

According to Screen Daily, NEON’s new pandemic-inspired film, “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” was showcased as part of the recent “The Big Screen is Back” event that happened as a way to get people excited about going to cinemas once again.

Continue reading David Lowery, Apichatpong Weerasethakul & More Directing Segments Of NEON’s Upcoming Pandemic-Inspired Film at The Playlist.