GODZILLA X KONG: The New Empire continues leading the global box office with $361.1 million worldwide in two weeks, "Godzilla x Kong" could ultimately leapfrog the $529 million global haul of 2014's "Godzilla.", it also more than doubled the second film behind the DreamWorks studio produced KUNG FU PANDA 4.  The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release, directed by Adam Wingard, has thus far outperformed any of the studio's recent monster films except for 2014's "Godzilla." The latest installment, in which Godzilla and Kong team up, cost about $135 million to produce.

Hong Kong's CineFan Club released its new program for the months of May/Jun/Jul which will feature Aki Kaurismäki Finnish film director's film along with little know artist Godfrey Reggio and the 1960s and 1970s inspired films of psychedelic cinema. Please go to our event posts for more information about the program: Click here

CineFan of Hong Kong released its new film lineup for the months of May, June and July. The main focus are the films of Finnish film director and screenwriter Aki Kaurismäki. Also featuring the films of artist and activist Godfrey Reggio and finally some of the 1960s and 1970s culture inspired classics known as the psychedelic era.

Aki Kaurismäki thinks his own films are dreadful. And his deadpan comedies are grim. But the bleaker the director has become, the more tender his films. No matter how despairing the reality is, his underdog characters always find solace in a sleazy bar, in eccentric rock 'n' roll, and in the company of a devoted canine friend.

Combining the restraint of Robert Bresson with the surrealism of Luis Buñuel, the profound Finn cinephile creates his own cinematic universe of visual stylisation and mordant jokiness for his humane comedy. Highly distinctive but hard to define, Aki's compositions are simple yet subtly expressive; his approach skews towards a tradition of neorealism, yet flecked with fairytalelike fantasy; his ambiance is nostalgic, yet evoking a modernist vibe. With witty irreverence and stylish intelligence, the artist works dichotomy into an arresting sensibility, championing humanity and spontaneous solidarity while sliding out an unspoken critique towards modern alienation and social injustice.

Seeing the Unseen Godfrey Reggio's The Qatsi Trilogy

In his Qatsi (= life) Trilogy, former Catholic monk and artist and activist Godfrey Reggio's critique of technology is not a message, but manifests as cinematic method in the form of non-fiction and wordless, visual narrative. Between poetry and discourse, and via torrents of images transported through Philip Glass' music, cinema becomes, in Reggio's own terms, a 'sacrament' directly confronting the technicised human world by firing it up.

Psychedelia – Cinema as a Fever Dream

Dennis Hopper's 1969 Easy Rider, one of America's first counterculture films that fused mainstream aesthetics with avant-garde tendencies to capture the sociopolitical climate of the time, helped bring psychedelic films into Hollywood. Robert Altman's surreal, dreamlike reality in 3 Women, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's dizzying experiment in Performance, and Hayashi Kaizo's grafting of silentera aesthetics in To Sleep So as to Dream - all see the artists explore the interplay of films and druginduced states of mind as mutually constitutive transformations in human consciousness – and also cinematic adventures.

Some psychedelic films are full-on assault on the senses, pushing your mental state to the edge. Recreating an out-of-body experience fuelled by psychedelic drugs, provocateur Gaspar Noé conceives a transcendental odyssey that defies life and death with masterful aerial shots in Enter the Void. Ken Russell creates a bombastic take on the pop opera genre with Tommy, a relentlessly frenetic musical experience with jaw-dropping visual imagination.

Visit the Official Website for the full program and more information.

Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City's first international film festival has opened its doors and welcome guests and participants.

Please visit the Official Website for more information.

The country's long overdue cinema law was finally revised last year and now permits local city governments to host international film festivals. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest city, seized this opportunity to organise its inaugural international film festival.

"This collaboration highlights the close partnership between governmental bodies and private companies, facilitated by an open policy allowing private entities to participate in government social projects," says HIFF executive director Pham Minh Toan.

His event company Vietfest, which specialises in running large-scale entertainment and cultural projects, has previously collaborated with the Department of Culture and Sports of HCMC on several major events such as the Ho Chi Minh City International Music Festival (HOZO). Three successful editions have been held for HOZO since 2019, with latest hosting 250 artists and 150,000 attendees.

Toan and long-time collaborator Do Hoa have spent the past few years cultivating the idea of an international film festival in Vietnam. "We established Vietfest, which stands for Vietnam Festival, to organise multiple type of festivals, including film," says Hoa, who is HIFF deputy executive director. "We believed the time for a film festival in HCMC would come and have included activities related to film festivals in our agenda during business trips."

Toan and Hoa attended the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2019, but Covid put a stop to overseas travelling until they visited South Korea's Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in 2022. Last year, they returned to Busan and travelled to Singapore and Indonesia to immerse themselves in various cultures and attend music and film festivals to gain insight and knowledge.

Please visit the Official Website for the Film Festival

Below are the results for the 2024 Oscars Academy Awards. The most awards were taken by Christopher Nolan's film OPPENHEIMER. See the full list of awards below:

Best Picture:
OPPENHEIMER

Actor in Leading Fole:
Cillian Murphy - OPPENHEIMER

Best Supporting Actor:
Robert Downey Jr. - OPPENHEIMER

Actress in Leading Role:
Emma Stone - POOR THINGS

Actress in Supporting Role:
Da'Vine Joy Randolph - THE HOLDOVERS

Best animation:
The Boy and the Heron

Cinematography:
OPPENHEIMER

Best Costume Design:
POOR THINGS

Best Directing:
Christopher Nolan - OPPENHEIMER

Documentary Feature Film:
20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL

Documentary Short:
THE LAST REPAIR SHOP

Best Editing:
Jennifer Lame - OPPENHEIMER

International Feature Film:
THE ZONE OF INTEREST (United Kingdom)

Makeup and Hairstyling:
Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston - POOR THINGS

Best Original Score:
Ludwig Goransson - OPPENHEIMER

Best Music, Original Song:
"What Was I Made For" - Barbie
Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell

Production Design:
POOR THINGS

Short Animated Film:
WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
Dave Mullins and Brad Booker

Best Live Action Short Film:
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR

Sound:
THE ZONE OF INTEREST

Visual Effects:
GODZILLA MINUS ONE

Adapted Screenplay:
AMERICAN FICTION

Original Screenplay:
ANATOMY OF A FALL

Additional information available at the Academy Awards' Official Website

Check out there first trailer: https://vimeo.com/916011584/

We also have a behind the scene video from the making of the first film in 2021: https://vimeo.com/557271487

The movie is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2024, could also be as early as May.

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Due to the large scale strikes in Hollywood by the actors and writers actors and the possibility for others in Europe joining them affected the film industry all around the world. Actors today are still facing hard times finding work as many other parts of the film industry had also been halted. The slow recovery still affecting the industry but both, production companies and movie goers are going back to work and audiences going to watch and enjoy new films again. Currently, however there is a large number of actors that are still waiting to get a role and many accept below their pay grade jobs.

Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh is set to star in the action thriller film titled THE MOTHER.

Melanie Laurent has been appointed as director for the new movie which is also being shopped to international buyers in Berlin. Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee will produce the movie through Thunder Road, alongside Arthur Sarkissian and John Schramm. 

The story:

Michelle will play Ann, an immigrant mother and business woman looking to make the best for her family and her new life in America. When her two teenage sons stumble into trouble with a Boston dirty cop and a crime ring, Ann has no choice but to rekindle her past and stop at nothing until her sons are safe.

Filming for THE MOTHER will begin in the summer 2024. Stuart Ford will executive produce for AGC Studios alongside 30WEST, which is financing the film.

Wishing best for Michelle and team for the new project.

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