Vitro Nasu

Jacques Perrin and Pauline Kael
(1977 at Cannes)

Remembered for Cinema Paradiso, French actor Jacques Perrin died

Jacques Perrin wiki

He appeared alongside Claudia Cardinale in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia and Marcello Mastroianni in Family Diary. He then played several roles in films of Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Truth in 1960) or Mauro Bolognini (Corruption in 1963) and leading roles in four films by Pierre Schoendoerffer : La 317e Section (1965), Le Crabe-tambour (1977), A Captain’s Honor (1982) and Là-haut, un roi au dessus des nuages (2004). He played in two musical movies by Jacques Demy : The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Donkey Skin (1970), both with Catherine Deneuve. He also was the adult Salvatore in the international success Cinema Paradiso.

In 1966, he won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival, for the Italian film Almost a Man and the Spanish film The Search.

At 27, he created a film production company and produced and acted in Z, directed by Costa-Gavras and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, and Irene Papas. Z received the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1969.

He produced Costa-Gavras’s films État de Siège (State of Siege) in 1973 and Section spéciale in 1975. Both had political themes, and as a producer, Perrin continued along this path with a documentary on the Algerian uprising (La guerre d’Algérie) and a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende (La Spirale). In 1973, Perrin produced the first film by Benoît Lamy, Home Sweet Home in which he starred alongside Claude Jade as his love interest. The movie received 14 international awards.

In 1976, he produced another Oscar-winning film : La Victoire en chantant (Black and White in Color) by director Jean-Jacques Annaud. A year later, he embarked on Le Désert des Tartares as a producer and an actor, co-starring Trintignant again, but also Max von Sydow, Vittorio Gassman and Philippe Noiret. The film won the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français.

Adieu Catherine Spaak

(Catherine Spaak with Vittorio Gassman and Jean Louis Trintignant)
(Il Sorpasso – directed by Dino Risi)

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(With Kevin McCarthy in Hotel 1967 movie)

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Born in France to a Belgian family, Spaak became famous in Italy as an actress, singer, television presenter and dancer. Two years ago, she had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. For 15 years, she presented Harem on Rai 3 and was the first presenter of the magazine show Forum.

Michel Bouquet passed away on Maurice Ronet’s birthday (April 13)

Michel Bouquet BBC Obit

Michel Bouquet

He appeared in more than 100 films from 1947 to 2020. He won the Best Actor European Film Award for Toto the Hero in 1991 and two Best Actor Césars for How I Killed My Father (2001) and The Last Mitterrand (2005). He also received the Molière Award for Best Actor for Les côtelettes in 1998, then again for Exit the King in 2005. In 2014, he was awarded the Honorary Molière for the sum of his career. He received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 2018.

Making Cold War – How Director’s disaster parents became a love story

Pawlikowski has been trying to tell the story of his parents’ relationship, in one way or another, since he first started making features after an earlier career as a documentarian, although in the past he’s explored it only in the least obvious, most metaphoric sense. Ida, after all, was about a young Polish nun who discovers she’s actually Jewish. His 2004 feature, My Summer of Love, was about lesbian teenagers in an English boarding school (one of them played by a young Emily Blunt). But, until he had a conversation with his friend Alfonso Cuaron, Pawlikowski was unsure about taking on his parents’ 40-year love story in any literal way. “It was too long and messy,” Pawlikowski says of his trepidations. “I didn’t know if I could tell it the way I wanted to.” Cuaron, though (who has his own autobiographical feature out this year, Roma), pushed him to try.

Pawel Pawlikowski IMDB

Criterion – Cold War

Pawel Pawlikowski his early films in England

With Cold War nominated for major awards at this year’s Baftas and Oscars, the Polish film-maker talks about returning to his homeland, and how a tumultuous family life has made a mark on his work

(Closing Ceremony – The 71st Annual Cannes Film Festival)

April 9 – Happy birthday Kristen Stewart!

(Chloe Zhao and Brady Jandreau)

See their interview on youtube here

How, horse, actors, six man crew Chloe Zhao made Rider (Film Independent blog)

Happy birthday Chloe Zhao !

In 2017, Zhao directed The Rider, a contemporary western drama, which follows a young cowboy’s journey to self-discovery after a near-fatal accident ends his professional riding career.[38] The film was executive produced by her father, Yuji Zhao.[39] As with her first feature, Zhao engaged a cast of non-actors who lived at the filming location, in this case on a ranch.[40] Her inspiration came from Brady Jandreau—a cowboy she had met and befriended on the reservation where she shot her first film—who suffered a severe head injury when thrown from his horse during a rodeo competition.[41] Jandreau would star in the film, playing a fictionalized version of himself as Brady Blackburn

Zhao now resides in the Topatopa Mountains in Ojai, California with three chickens, Red, Cebe, and Lucille and two dogs, Taco and Rooster[81] and her partner and cinematographer, Joshua James Richards.[11] Richards and Zhao met while Zhao was researching for her first feature film Songs My Brother Taught Me and Richards was still a film student at NYU. He has been her cinematographer for her next two films and served as camera operator on Marvel’s Eternals.

Happy birthday Xavier Dolan

Xavier Dolan MUBI
(“Tom At The Farm” described as Beautiful, Interesting, Incredible Cinema)

Gaspard Ulliel
(And Xavier Dolan)

Xavier Dolan’s emotional tribute to Gaspard Ulliel at Cesar Awards

Melvil Poupaud
Laurence Anyways directed by Xavier Dolan.

Great interview on Xavier Dolan Melvil was eloquent. (Youtube)

Sad news, William Hurt passed away on March 13, 2022, he was 71 years old.

William Hurt
A Couch in New York, directed by Chantal Akerman

(William Hurt and Sandrine Bonnaire were in the Plague an adaptation of Albert Camus novel. They had a daughter. William Hurt appeared in Bonnaire’s documentary film years later).

William Hurt, Harvey Keitel

“My Inspiration is no longer drawn from the cinema” (MUBI)

(Celine Sciama scripted “Being 17”, here Techine with Sciama and actors from Being 17)

Andre Techine wiki

Brontes Sisters

Brontes Sisters – Modern Family – art forum

Sensitive to the extreme limits the Brontë sisters faced owing to their sex, Téchiné is careful not to overdramatize the fact that Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all published, in 1847, their first novels under male pseudonyms (becoming, respectively, the “brothers” Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell). The director’s insistence on understatement—though never at the expense of diminishing the anguish and thwarted desire the sisters endured during their too-short lives (all died before reaching the age of forty)—clearly guided the performances as well.

Roland Barthes as an actor

Roland Barthes

(Via Téchiné wiki)

Téchiné is noted for his elegant and emotionally charged films that often delve into the complexities of human condition and emotions. An intimist flavor pervades his work. One of Téchiné’s trademarks is the lyrical examination of human relations in a sensitive but unsentimental way. Influenced by Roland Barthes, Bertolt Brecht, Ingmar Bergman, William Faulkner and the cinematic French New Wave, Téchiné’s originality lies in his subtle exploration of sexuality and national identity, as he challenges expectations in his depictions of gay relations, the North African dimensions of contemporary French culture, and the center-periphery relationship between Paris and his native Southwest.[6] Shy and ascetic-looking, Téchiné does not opine on political issues and rarely appears on television.[2] Fear of flying prevents him from attending most film openings or festivals more than a train ride from his Paris apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Garden.[2]

“I never know how each film will end,” Téchiné has said. “When I’m filming, I shoot each scene as if it were a short film. It’s only when I edit that I worry about the narrative. My objective is to tell a story, but that’s the final thing I do

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

The film was Parajanov’s first major work and earned him international acclaim for its rich use of costume and color. The film also features a detailed portrayal of Ukrainian Hutsul culture, showing Carpathian environment, family rituals, the beauty of Hutsul traditions, music, costumes, and dialect.

(Svetlana and Sergwi Parajanov)
Widow of Sergei Parajanov dies in Kyiv

Svetlana Shcherbatyuk-Parajanova was a philologist and teacher.

The Persecution of Parajanov and Tarkovsky

(Tarksovky and Parajanov – see films, photos etc here)

Ukraine Rhapsody

(When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit)

Review here

‘When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit’ Review: Judith Kerr’s Childhood Classic Gets Faithful, Tasteful Screen Treatment
Oscar-winner Caroline Link’s child’s-eye saga of a Jewish refugee family fleeing Nazi Germany misses some of its source novel’s urgency, but it’s absorbing and beautifully crafted.

Caroline Link wiki

Caroline Link on directing “When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit

Happy birthday Simon Abkarian! (His wiki – see his filmograpy here)

Simon Abkarian was born Simone Abkarian on March 5, 1962, in Gonesse, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France, into a French – Armenian family. Young Simon Abkarian grew up in a trilingual environment, he learned French at school in addition to his native Armenian, and also learned English by watching American films since he was a kid. He spent most of his childhood in France until the age of nine, then went with his parents to Beirut, Lebanon.

The Audition (2019)

In one of his latest movies, The Audition by Ina Weisse, Simon Abkarian portrays the luthier Philippe married to Anna, a violin teacher. They have a musically gifted son Jonas, who Anna has been trying to impose her lessons on. The story revolves around their family dynamic when Anna starts preparing a talented violinist Alexander for the end-of-the-year exam. She becomes obsessed with Alexander’s lessons, moving further away from her husband and son. With this role, Simon Abkarian expands his repertoire, portraying a calm and loving character, who primarily evokes empathy.

(Simon Abkarian in Audition)

Ararat

Directed by Atom Egoyan, Ararat is one of the most well-known movies about the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. In the movie, Simon Abkarian plays Arshile Gorky, a famous visual artist of Armenian origin. His portrayal of Gorky is haunting and powerful.

Many Lives of Simon Abkarian

Tahar Rahim & Simon Abkarian

Fatih Akin directed Tahar Rahim and Simon Abkarian in “The Cut”.

Sally Potter directed Simon Abkarian in “Yes”

Happy Hinamatsuri Girls day in Japan

37 Seconds Movie directed by Hikari

A story of Cerebral Palsy and self-dicovery

(Moving Shinji Somai )
Film review “Moving’ by Shinji Somai

13-year-old Tomoko Tabata provides a great anchor for the film in her debut, as the narrative seems to follow her every whim. The plethora of feelings, behaviors, and psychological statues she depicts is the highlight of a naturalistic performance, which allowed her to begin a career in acting that continues until today.

Girls building a solar toy car.

See girls building Solar Car toy