Lanthimos, Nichols and more at the 2012 IndieLisboa

(click on the image to visit the official website)

Complete program and press book.

Starting on April 26th with Todd Solondz's Dark Horse (2011), nominated for the Golden Lion in the last Venice Film Festival. I had the pleasure to watch his prior Life During Wartime (2009) in the 7th edition and I vividly recommend you check these out. Other highlights are Giorgos Lanthimos's (Dogtooth (2009)) new film, Alps (2011), which also premiered in Venice; Jeff Nichols with one of the year's best works, Take Shelter (2011), with Michael Shanon and Jessica Chastain; Cerro Negro (2011) and Golden Bear short winner Rafa (2011), both by Portuguese young filmmaker João Salaviza; Andrea Arnolds's Wuthering Heights (2011), the adaptation of the 1847 classic by Emily Brontë; Los Angeles Plays Itself (2004), a documentary by Thom Andersen that explores the city as we've been seeing it in the movies throughout the last hundred years; Into the Abyss (2011), the latest Werner Herzog (he featured here two years ago with My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done (2009) and Bad Lieutenant: Port Call New Orleans (2009)) and many others, such as short films from all over the world and a whole bunch of possibly surprising features in and out of competition.

I'll be covering some of the pieces I watch and thus will be around.

Cannes'12 line up: favorites

Released this week as you may have already consulted all over the blogsphere, here's the line up.

2012 promises to be another big fight for the Golden Palm, although it leaves out this year's heavyweights like Paul Thomas Anderson, Terrence Malick (he is coming up with his own Lawless) and Woody Allen. Among them all, here are my favorites (in no specific order):

Moonrise Kingdom (written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola; directed by Wes Anderson)
Des Rouilles et d'os (written by Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain & Craig Davidson; directed by Jacques Audiard)
Cosmopolis (book by Don DeLillo, written and directed by David Cronenberg)
Killing Them Softly (written and directed by Andrew Dominik)
Amour (written and directed by Michel Haneke)
Lawless (book by Matt Bondurant; written by Nick Cave; directed by John Hillcoat)
Like Someone in Love (written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami)
Mud (written and directed by Jeff Nichols)
Vous n'avez encore rien vu (play by Jean Anouilh; written by Laurent Herbiet and Alain Resnais; directed by Alain Resnais)
On the Road (book by Jack Kerouac; written by José Riviera; directed by Walter Salles)
Hemingway & Gellhorn (written by Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner; directed by Philip Kaufman)
Dracula 3D (book by Bram Stoker; written by Antonio Tentori, Stefano Piani, Enrique Cerezo, Dario Argento; directed by Dario Argento)

Anthony "Alfred Hitchcock" Hopkins

Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock for previously titled Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, now only Hitchcock, to be played as a love story between the director and his wife, Alma Reville, during the making of the horror/suspense masterpiece. The film stars Helen Mirren, Scarlet Johnasson, Jessica Biel and Michael Stuhlbarg.

Paul McCartney, Natalie Portmand and Johnny Depp

My Valentine, by Paul McCartney.