Weekly Roundup: DOXA lineup announcement, Canadian Screen Awards Winners, and Luc Moullet on the Duke

Your handy one-stop-shop for cinephile news, articles, and videos from the week that was.

News Roundup

• The DOXA Documentary Film Festival announced the lineup for their 2020 festival, which will be held online June 18-26.

• The Venice Film Festival will go ahead, the region’s governor confirmed. “Evidently, organizers — who were expected to take a decision in late May — are now confident the fest is able to go ahead as planned, although the look of the event will be different this year, as public health safeguards must be taken into consideration. The festival has not yet commented on plans for September.”

• After being delayed earlier this year, the Canadian Screen Awards have now revealed their slate of 2020 winners. Sophie Deraspe’s Antigone took home Best Canadian Film while VIFF 2019 standout The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was awarded the Achievement in Directing prize.

Reading Roundup

• For IndieWire, Anne Thompson reports on how Netflix is changing their release strategy in light of the recent announcements that the Golden Globes and Academy Awards will allow streaming titles to qualify without having a theatrical release.

• Still doing the Lord’s work, Seventh Art continues to translate the great French film critic Luc Moullet’s book Politique des acteurs. The latest chapter is all about the Duke. “We can’t think of a better beginning for a mythification [John Wayne’s entrance in Stagecoach]. What’s curious is that it’s for a square almost unknown to the big studios, a handsome, scrappy giant, a sharpshooter trapped in Z movies of Republic Pictures where he had made forty mid-length features in six years. Ford seems to have wanted to create a star, his star, since they were to make fifteen films together in twenty-five years. The most faithful duo in the history of cinema. Amazing intuition, when none of the earlier films helped foresee Wayne’s abilities.”

• “As opposed to other American movies that might frame [his characters’ transformations] as a kind of rapid maturation or personal breakthrough, Sallitt’s film shows how change has a way of maintaining a merciless neutrality.” For the VIFF Blog, Michael Scoular analyzes Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen, which is now playing on our online cinema.

Viewing/Listening Roundup

• Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which appears to still be set for a release on July 17, now has a trailer. 

• After being shelved for the last six years, Hong Sang-soo’s Hill of Freedom, among the Korean director’s finest (and funniest) films, will finally get a stateside release through various virtual cinemas. A must-see in yours truly’s opinion. 

• On the latest episode of the VIFF Podcast, hip-hop producer, director and leader of legendary group, The Wu-Tang Clan, RZA discusses the influence kung-fu classics had on his music, his master-apprentice relationship with Quentin Tarantino and what happened to the four-hour cut of The Man With The Iron Fists.

‘Les Filles du Roi’ Director on Transforming a Stage Production into a Full-Blown Movie Musical – VIFF Podcast

In this episode we welcome Corey Payette, director of the movie musical Les Filles du Roi, in conversation with the film’s editor Christian Díaz Durán.Adapted from Urban Ink’s stage production, this locally-shot film screened at VIFF 2023. Les Filles du Roi tells through song the powerful story of the young Kanien’kehá:ka girl Kateri and her brother Jean-Baptiste, whose lives are disrupted upon the arrival of the “Daughters of the King” in ‘New France’ (now Montreal) in 1665.Corey Payette is an interdisciplinary storyteller, writer, composer, producer, and director in film and theatre. Since 2014, he has been the Artistic Director of Urban Ink, a position first held by Marie Clements, at one of Canada’s most ambitious theatre companies. Payette wrote the music, lyrics, and directed the acclaimed musicals Children of God, Les Filles du Roi, and Starwalker, among others. He is a member of the Mattagami First Nations, with French-Canadian and Irish ancestries. Les Filles du Roi is his first feature film.This conversation was recorded at VIFF Centre in March 2024.–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––This podcast is brought to you by the Vancouver International Film Festival.Presented on the traditional and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. The Greater Vancouver International Film Festival Society is a not-for-profit cultural organization that operates the internationally acclaimed Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), and year-round programming at VIFF Centre. See what's playing now at viff.org.

1. ‘Les Filles du Roi’ Director on Transforming a Stage Production into a Full-Blown Movie Musical 01:14:57
2. ‘Rutherford Falls’ Co-Creator Sierra Teller Ornelas on breaking down Indigenous stereotypes through humour 01:05:10
3. ‘Mare of Easttown’ Director Craig Zobel on “humanistic” crime drama 01:07:20
4. ‘The Green Knight’ Production Designer Jade Healy on creating the look, feel, and shape of a fantasy realm 59:48
5. ‘The Suicide Squad’ Editor Fred Raskin on how the story takes its final shape in the editing room 01:06:34

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