Weekly Roundup: Dune sets its premiere, Jenni Olson is feted, and Bill Douglas lives on

Your weekly one-stop-shop for film news, interviews, articles, and videos from the week that was.

After initial speculation that Denis Villeneuve’s Dune might premiere at Cannes, the filmmaker’s latest sci-fi epic has now been confirmed for the Venice Film Festival. Villeneuve previously premiered Arrival at the prestigious fall festival.

With the Cannes lineup now set, attention has shifted ever so slightly to the Marché du Film, where there’s bound to be a bidding for the in-the-works wares by an array of luminaries. As is his custom, Criterion’s David Hudson rounds up the latest news concerning upcoming efforts by the Dardenne brothers, Todd Haynes, Sarah Polley and many, many more.

Jenni Olson curator, whose The Joy of Life and The Royal Road have both screened at VIFF, received the 35th special Teddy Award at the 71st Berlinale. Discussing the honour with Sally McGee of Filmmaker Magazine, the multi-hyphenate reflects on her younger self and shares, “It is interesting to think back about how much I struggled and thought badly about myself, which in some ways is about being queer, butch and just different. In other ways, it’s being a woman—in other words, it’s just about being human. We tend to be so hard on ourselves and it’s so sad. I wish I had felt better about myself at the time and had a sense of like, ‘I’m awesome. Look at this, look at what I’m doing. I’m being courageous and following my heart and my passion and I am doing important work and meaningful work, and I am a good person.'”

Over at The Guardian, Andy Kimpton-Nye writes on Bill Douglas. Revered by Truffaut and Visconti, the Scottish filmmaker and his four-feature oeuvre are largely unknown. Kimpton-Nye hopes that an additional 20 8mm short films that have recently resurfaced will further appreciation of Douglas’ “bleakly poetic” work. He writes, “This previously unseen collection of films represents a prodigious outpouring from an aspiring director… Douglas looked on the 8mm films as an integral part of his apprenticeship. The 30th anniversary of his death is on 18 June – a fitting time, I think, for all devotees of film to make it part of their apprenticeship to explore the feature films of Bill Douglas and keep alive the memory of a unique and extraordinary talent, and a truly great artist.”