MUBI UK's May schedule features the latest offerings from acclaimed filmamkers Joachim Trier and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, focusses on director Małgorzata Szumowska and actor Franz Rogowksi, and a selection of Cannes favourites.
The Worst Person in the World
Acclaimed filmmaker Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021) – a wistful and subversive romantic drama about the quest for love and meaning - arrives exclusively on MUBI next month.
Set in contemporary Oslo, it features a star-making lead performance from Renate Reinsve as a young woman who, on the verge of turning 30, navigates multiple love affairs, existential uncertainty and career dissatisfaction as she slowly starts deciding what she wants to do, who she wants to be, and ultimately who she wants to become.
This life-affirming coming of age story deservedly won Reinsve the Best Actress award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film was also nominated for two Academy Awards (Original Screenplay and International Feature Film), and two BAFTA awards (Leading Actress and Film Not in the English Language).
Trier’s series of compelling and perceptive portraits of the city of Oslo and its inhabitants, Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011), will be presented alongside The Worst Person in the World – known unofficially as The Oslo Trilogy.
Great Freedom
The exquisite latest film from writer-director Sebastian Meise, Great Freedom (2021) paints a stirring portrait of gay resistance and resilience in post-war Germany. Sensual yet arresting, Austria’s official submission to the 2022 Academy Awards turns a humanist eye towards a heartrending past.
After being “liberated” by Allied forces in 1945, Hans is transferred directly from a concentration camp to prison to finish out his sentence. There, he forms an unlikely connection with his cellmate Viktor, a convicted murder. As Hans is jailed again and again, a relationship that begins with revulsion blossoms into something far more tender.
Unfolding across three decades, Great Freedom weaves together intimate moments across time to form a personal and political epic. In the process, this Cannes prizewinner triumphs as a searing depiction of love in the face of injustice.
Franz Rogowski: The Man of the Hour
Franz Rogowksi has steadily solidified his place as the most exciting European actor of his generation. In anticipation of the May 6 streaming premiere of Great Freedom (2021), featuring one the actor's best performances, MUBI presents 'Franz Rogowski: The Man of the Hour' — a series showcasing some of his most transformative work.
Cannes Takeover
In celebration of the return to the Croisette, this May MUBI will be highlighting a rich selection of films presented at previous editions of the Cannes Film Festival. They'll be showing four exclusive films from the last edition of the French festival: Ahed’s Knee (2021) by Nadav Lapid, a harsh tale where the personal becomes political, Deception (2021) by Arnaud Desplechin starring Léa Seydoux and adapted from Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, Mariner of the Mountains (2021) by Karim Aïnouz, a personal documentary in which the director embarks on a sentimental journey to Algeria, and Sycorax (2021) by Lois Patiño and Matías Piñeiro, an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'.
Masks & Bodies: A Tribute to MałGorzata Szumowska
Leading a contemporary charge of female filmmakers who have emerged from Poland’s male-dominated film industry over the past decade, Małgorzata Szumowska is an acclaimed mainstay of the international festival circuit. With a keen eye for satirising the prejudices and ideologies of small-town communities, and an agnostic fascination with metaphysical phenomena, Szumowska’s growing body of work stands among the most singular examinations of a nation caught between the chaotic excesses of capitalism and the enshrined decrees of religious orthodoxy. In this series, MUBI will present Szumowska’s two silver-bear winners Body (2015) and Mug (2018) as well as her two latest features The Other Lamb (2019) and Never Gonna Snow Again (2020).
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) arrives on MUBI exclusively in May. The Silver Bear winner follows three women — one tangled in a messy love triangle, another victim to a failed seduction, the other caught in a case of mistaken identity — tracing their quests for love and desire. Told in three parts, this compelling exploration of relationships and coincidences operates with a lightness of touch and emotional resonance clear across Hamaguchi’s body of work, marking him as a master storyteller.
