MUBI UK's June line-up includes the UK premiere of Ninja Thyberg's
porn industry drama, the latest from British director Harry Wootliff,
a Lars Von Trier double, a spotlight on Belgian actress
Virginie Efira and more.
Pleasure
The raw, vital and groundbreaking exploration of the adult film industry,
Pleasure (2021) – an unflinching first feature from Swedish
writer-director Ninja Thyberg – lands exclusively on MUBI this
month. One of the most audacious breakouts of the 2021 Sundance Film
Festival, Thyberg’s captivating debut is as authentic as it is daring,
with a fierce turn from newcomer Sofia Kappel.
Adapted from Thyberg’s 2013 prize-winning short of the same name, it
follows “Bella Cherry” (Kappel) as she arrives in Los Angeles with dreams
of becoming the next porn superstar. Living at a “model house” with other
hopeful performers, she soon develops a supportive friendship with fellow
housemate and porn actress Joy, who helps her navigate this seductive new
world. However, as her ruthless ambition leads her into increasingly
dangerous territory, Bella struggles to reconcile her dreams of
empowerment with the realities of the darker side of the business.
A taboo-busting depiction of the porn industry,
Pleasure addresses powerful ideas of consent and agency in
sex work, through a fearless and uncompromising lens.
True Things
True Things
(2021), Harry Wootliff’s follow up to her award-winning debut feature
Only You (2018), lands exclusively on MUBI this month. The
film follows Kate, a woman recently released from prison and bored with her
tedious office job who, despite warnings from those closest to her, embarks
on an intoxicating and destructive sexual relationship with a mysterious
stranger. The film features intense and visceral performances from
Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke, as well as immersive cinematography
from Ashley Connor (Madeline’s Madeline).
We (Nous)
Known for capturing the quotidian struggles of Black and immigrant
communities in contemporary France, Alice Diop’s latest work,
We (Nous) (2021), creates a kaleidoscopic portrait of people
from communities in the Parisian suburbs, their lives and work connected
by the RER B commuter train that cuts through the city from north to
south. This tender, patchwork documentary combines essay, observational
and 1st-person forms interrogating France’s national multicultural project
with playfulness and a sharp attention to questions of race, religion,
class and immigration status which won Diop “Best Documentary” and “Best
Film” (Encounters) at last year’s Berlinale.
Alongside the upcoming release of We (Nous) (2021), MUBI
will present a focus on the French-Senegalese director – one of the most
exciting documentarians working today. This collection creates a context
for her powerful, incisive works that combine latter-day cinema verité
with first-person forms and reenactment to explore questions of race,
masculinity and connection.
The Girl and the Spider
Nearly a decade after the international festival debut of
The Strange Little Cat (2013), brothers Ramon and
Silvan Zürcher return with
The Girl and the Spider
(2021) – the second instalment in their planned trilogy about human
togetherness – showing exclusively on MUBI this month.
Previously compared to the cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski and Angela
Schanelec, this award-winning chamber piece takes a piercing look into
loss, transition and growth observing two days in the lives of friends
Lisa and Mara as the former moves across town out of the apartment they
have shared. Boxes, furniture and a farewell party turn the film into a
weird magnetic field where friends, lovers, relatives, neighbours and
strangers attract each other.
Spotlight on Virginie Efira
From television presenter to film festival regular, actress
Virginie Efira’s breakthrough onto the international main stage has
been nothing short of exciting. To celebrate her rise, MUBI is showcasing
Efira’s leading roles in profiles of women at a crossroads including
Justine Triet’s two latest titles: Sybil (2019),
playing a psychotherapist who becomes deeply involved in the life of her
newest patient, a young actress who becomes wrapped up in a dramatic
affair with her co-star, and In Bed with Victoria (2016),
starring as a defense attorney and mother of two, lost in her personal and
professional life, who attends a wedding where an old friend and ex-lover
becomes a murder suspect.
Efira’s latest collaboration with filmmaker Paul Verheoven, the
subversive erotic drama
Benedetta
(2021), will be playing on MUBI in July. Efira stars as the titular
Benedetta, a nun whose religious fervour begins to manifest in
increasingly sensual and violent visions of Jesus when a farm girl called
Bartolomea (Daphné Patakia) enters the convent seeking refuge and
quickly develops an attraction to Benedetta.
Lars von Trier: A Double Bill
This month MUBI is spotlighting two of the most gruesome and disturbing
works of the Danish provocateur Lars von Trier. Described as both a
genius and a monster, the polarising auteur knows how to make audiences
squirm.
The double bill features the Cannes Jury Prize winning film
Breaking the Waves (1996), the Scotland-set love story
deconstructing the ties between religious devotion and eroticism which
first marked von Trier on an international stage, and
The House That Jack Built
(2018), a five part series recounting the elaborately orchestrated, savage
murders by serial killer Jack played by and equally terrifying and
captivating Matt Dillon. Not for the faint of heart.
Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema
Cinematic renderings of queer experiences not only illuminate the richness
of our collective humanity but also daringly subvert filmmaking
conventions. Reflecting this, MUBI's electric offering of LGBTQ+ cinema is
a celebration of queer artistry and history, highlighting urgent issues
and celebrating the sheer pleasure of unapologetic queer joy.
This year’s additions to their ongoing series Pride Unprejudiced: LGBT+
Cinema include: Jack and Diane (2012), a lesbian
coming-of-age story starring indie darlings Riley Keough and
Juno Temple, Jeanie Finlay’s documentary
Seahorse (2019) charting a transgender man's journey through
pregnancy and parenthood, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film,
the violent and erotic Querelle (1982).
Sebastián Lelio: A Double Bill
From beloved Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, MUBI is showing two
touching profiles of women on the fringes of society navigating love and
loss against familial pressures and expectations. First up, the Oscar
winning title
A Fantastic Woman
(2017) about transgender night club singer Marina (Daniela Vega), who
comes under suspicion following the death of her older lover Orlando,
followed by
Disobedience
(2017), Lelio’s English language debut starring Rachel Weisz and
Rachel McAdams as Roni and Esti, old lovers who reunite upon Roni’s
return home stirring up controversy in their close-knit Orthodox Jewish
community.
Artist Focus: Alexis Langlois
As part of MUBI's wider Pride programming, this month’s artist focus
spotlights the award-winning French experimental filmmaker
Alexis Langlois, whose subversive and surreal queer comedies explore
sexual identity, transphobia and community. They'll present his most recents
shorts The Demons of Dorothy (2021), described by Langlois
himself as “a kind of queer Wizard of Oz,” and Terror, Sisters! (2019), both written with a group of
girlfriends as an homage to genre films, pop culture and the camp universe
of John Waters.
Wet Sand
MUBI presents the latest work to emerge from Georgia’s burgeoning film
scene, Elene Naveriani’s Wet Sand (2021). The death of
a local patriarch sends shockwaves through a small village on the Black Sea,
as the arrival of his estranged granddaughter Moe forces an insular
community to confront a painful history of secrets and lies, as she attempts
to untangle the tragic consequences of her grandfather’s hidden love life.
The result is a work equal parts heartbreaking and brave, as Naveriani
examines the persistence of love under the shadow of Christian
fundamentalism.
The Actress
Starring the incomparable actor and filmmaker Isabel Sandoval,
artist Andrew Ondrejak returns with The Actress (2021),
which finds Sandoval shape-shifting through iconic moments in film history
and questioning how Hollywood has informed our ideas of art, beauty, and
ourselves. This new short film, commissioned by the Savannah College of Art
and Design inspired by Virginia Wolfe’s “Orlando,” draws on Ondrejack’s body
of work moving between film, performance and experimental theatre.
Moneyboys
Set in Southern China and filmed in Taiwan, Moneyboys (2021)
poignantly follows a gay hustler, whose life falls apart when he realises
his family accepts his money but not his homosexuality. A disciple of
Michael Haneke's at the Vienna Film Academy, director C.B. Yi's
assured debut drama is a visually sumptuous and formalist film switching
between rural and city surroundings to paint a kaleidoscopic portrait of
identity.
Our Bodies are Your Battlefields
In a contemporary Argentina divided between conservatism and an
unprecedented feminist impulse,
Our Bodies are Your Battlefields (2021) captures an intimate
dual portrait of the private lives and political work of two transwomen,
Claudia and Violeta, as they and their comrades lead the fight against
patriarchal violence that reveals how stories of individual
self-realisations can also become calls to collective action.
