MUBI UK's November line-up is headlined by the addition of
Leos Carax's musical, the latest from American indie filmmaker
Alexandre Rockwell, the beginning of a retrospective of the early
work of Denis Villeneuve and more.
Annette
Visionary filmmaker Leos Carax makes a triumphant return with
Annette (2021), which sees him teaming up with Sparks, one
of pop’s best-loved and most influential cult bands, to tell an
audacious story of the pitfalls of love, fame and fortune in a musical
extravaganza starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.
Following the film’s spectacular reception at the 2021 Cannes Film
Festival, where it premiered as the Opening Film and won the coveted
Best Director Award, the unabashedly unique and unforgettable spectacle,
soundtracked by Sparks’ typically idiosyncratic music and lyrics, will
be coming to MUBI this November, crowning their Leos Carax season 'Love
and Other Drugs: The Cinema of Leos Carax', which continues this month
with his early work Mauvais Sang (1986). The other titles
in the season, now available to stream are
Holy Motors (2012), and
Boy Meets Girl (1984).
Cosmic Trajectory: The Early Films of Denis Villeneuve
With his latest film Dune
hitting cinemas this month, MUBI exclusively presents a survey of
Denis Villeneuve’s early work by showing his second feature
Maelström (2000). Narrated by a talking fish, this is a playful,
often laugh-out-loud allegory, following a woman who starts dating the son
of a man she killed in a car accident. Also included in the focus are
Cosmos (1996) and
August 32nd on Earth (1998).
Landscape Plus: The Films of Laida Lertxundi
The Basque Country-born, California-educated Laida Lertxundi is
one of the most notable and revered experimental filmmakers of the last
decade. A rare occasion to see her work digitally,
Autoficción (2020) and 025 Sunset Red (2016)
are two essential, sun-baked shorts in an oeuvre that continues to be
playful and expand the boundaries of cinema. The series also includes
Words, Planets (2018),
Cry When it Happens (2010), and
Footnotes to a House of Love (2007).
Bad Habits: A Double Bill
To celebrate the UK premiere of Paul Verhoeven’s audacious new
epic Benedetta (2021) at the BFI London Film Festival this
October, MUBI presents a special double bill: two adaptations of Diderot’s
famous novel The Nun playing across October and November:
now showing
Guillaume Nicloux’s version
(2013), to be followed by Jacques Rivette’s (1966) on 2
November.
Sweet Thing
This month, MUBI exclusively presents Alexandre Rockwell's bright
and hopeful Sweet Thing (2020), which centres around the
lives of two children in contemporary New Bedford, Massachusetts, during
one eventful summer. Semi-improvised, shot in luminous black and white,
and receiving the esteemed endorsement of Quentin Tarantino, the film
captures the nuances of adolescence like few others.
Moments Like This Never Last
In November, MUBI continues their Portrait of the Artist series, inviting
audiences to take a peek into the mind of prolific New York artist
Dash Snow in MUBI’s exclusive presentation of
Moments Like This Never Last (2020). Thrust into the
international art world as a graffiti artist and photographer, Dash Snow’s
tragically short life is recounted through friends and peers in this
evocative and moving documentary. A contemporary with such figures as Ryan
McGinley and Dan Dolen, Snow's work lives on in the countless artists he
inspired, and the shape-shifting way he adapted into a rapidly branded art
world.
80,000 Years Old
Enthusiastically returning to her hometown of Normandy for work, an
archaeologist reunites with old acquaintances, though her joy begins to
dwindle after the trip doesn't go according to plan. Employing inventive
split screen to reflect the character's self-reflection, doubt, and
memories of her childhood, director Christelle Lheureux's
80,000 Years Old (2020) inventively weaves the past and
present and the real and unreal.
Friends and Strangers
James Vaughan’s astonishing debut
Friends and Strangers (2021) follows Australian
twenty-somethings Ray and Alice, who lack very little in life—and maybe
that’s their biggest problem. As they navigate a series of increasingly
awkward and comedic situations, whether in terms of friendship or love,
leisure time or work, nowhere does there seem to be much at stake in their
lives.
Maeve
Maeve (1981), set during the Troubles, is
Pat Murphy’s first and most audacious film, which follows the
titular Maeve who returns to Belfast after a long absence in London. The
film captures conversations between Maeve and various characters across
time, representing varying and opposing political viewpoints, during the
Northern Irish conflict. Newly restored.
The Trouble with Being Born
In The Trouble with Being Born (2020) Elli is an android
child and lives with an older man she calls her father. She shares his
memories, from important moments to incidental ones, and anything else he
programs her to remember. A 21st century semi-adaptation of Pinocchio,
uncovering new boundaries regarding our fraught relationships with the
machines we use and the people we love.
Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus
In this wildly ambitious Croatian animated film by Dalibor Barić,
Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus
(2020), Martin, who attempted to fight the system and is escaping
authorities, partners with Sara, a conceptual artist. Together they join a
revolutionary commune in the countryside, with the police on their trail.
A truly visionary film of grand imaginative ambition, reminiscent of (and
referencing) movies by Godard, Tarkovsky, and Cronenberg, and books by
Philip K. Dick, Robbe-Grillet, and Ursula K. Le Guin.
