The Film Stage

Nathan Fielder Sets Feature Directorial Debut with Checkmate, Produced by Emma Stone
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After more than proving his directing mettle with Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder entered another echelon with The Curse, helming seven episodes (including the mind-bending finale). Now, the comedian, actor, writer, and director has notched another step...
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Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg Review: Scarlett Johansson Gives Voice to Redemption Story
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You can’t always get what you want, unless you are a Rolling Stones fan hungering for documentary deep-dives into the band’s storied history. Indeed, it is spectacularly serendipitous that Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg arrives just a few...
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Watch: Wes Anderson Directs and Stars in New Short Film 100 Years of Meisterstück
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While Wes Anderson continues production in Germany on his new film The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benicio Del Toro, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Riz Ahmed, and Mia Threapleton (Kate Winslet’s daughter), we have another treat from the filmmaker today. After teaming...
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The B-Side – In Conversation with Nancy Savoca
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Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Today we speak to Nancy Savoca, the...
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Kleber Mendonça Filho Sets Next Film The Secret Agent Starring Wagner Moura
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Following up his documentary Pictures of Ghosts, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho has unveiled his first narrative feature since 2019’s Bacurau. He’ll next direct the political thriller The Secret Agent, set to star Brazilian icon Wagner Moura (Elite Squad, Civil...
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Jane Schoenbrun on I Saw the TV Glow, Trans Girl Time, Olivier Assayas, and Emma Stone’s Support
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It’s been a few months since I saw Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow at Sundance Film Festival and I haven’t been able to shake its overwhelming, ultimately terrifying power. Telling the story of Owen (played early on by...
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The Contestant Review: A Breezy Look at a Baffling Reality Show Challenge
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The tagline of Clair Titley’s The Contestant is “The naked truth about the world’s first reality star.” The show referred to is Susunu! Denpa Shōnen, which aired in Japan from January 1998 to March 2002, and which saw participants––usually young...
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Lisandro Alonso Will Revisit La Libertad for His Next, Potentially Final Film
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Argentine master Lisandro Alonso teased his next feature at Space Not Time, a Los Angeles retrospective of his work. Speaking after a 35mm screening of the 2001 debut feature La Libertad, Alonso told James Benning his plans to revisit that...
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Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, and Louis Garrel Hit Their Marks In Trailer for Quentin Dupieux’s Cannes Opener The Second Act
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Cannes begins, against all reason, two weeks from today, and with it comes the trailer for this year’s opening-night selection. (Arriving in French theaters the same day is no doubt further incentive to get the marketing machine rolling.) Quentin Dupieux’s...
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Ryûsuke Hamaguchi on Evil Does Not Exist, Being in Harmony with Nature, and Why the Ending is Realistic
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On a bright summer day in a tent on top of the sultry clay courts that give the Tennis Club Venezia its name, writer-director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi––known for his searing stories of love and longing and a taut, cryptic cinematic style...
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