Category: News

(Photograph credit: Entertainment Weekly)

Woody Allen is back again with a new film. It should be no surprise that it’ll premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival. Spain’s most prestigious film festival since the story sets in there. The film, which is titled “Rifkin’s Festival” follows an American couple attending the festival. They both start an affair with different people. At least that’s what we know, so far.

Allen’s recent films have rarely got strong positive reviews. The allegations against him in the early 90s surfacing again due to #MeToo made him facing trouble at financing his movies in America or casting high-profile American actors. Unsurprisingly, he gathered a mostly European cast for this one.

It’s not his first film to open the festival. In 2004, “Melinda and Melinda” was the opening night film of the festival. Allen himself received a career achievement award that year. We’ll see if Allen is back to his form as not any of his films since “Blue Jasmine” has received universal acclaim. His latest “Rainy Day in New York” did pretty fine at the box office around the globe. It may be another hit for him, but it’s a question if US audiences will ever get a chance to see the film or not.

French cinema halls reopen with fervor after three-month-long COVID-19 lockdown

French cinema halls, that thrived even during the two world wars, were forced shut by the COVID-19 pandemic on March 14, 2020. After a long wait, the country saw its cinema halls open on the midnight of June 22, 2020.

In the absence of new films to screen, cinemas are choosing to screen older movies or new movies whose theatrical run was cut short due to the lockdown. The MK2 cinema in southern Paris screened the 2015 animated feature ‘Minions’ for kids to enjoy after the three-month-long hiatus. The cinema’s creative heads placed minions-inspired stuffed toys on various seats to convey the idea of social distancing to kids. Meanwhile, other cinemas screened 2019 hits such as the French film ‘Alice in the Mayor’ and the 2019 Academy Awards favorite ‘Green Book’.

The French film industry should be relieved as forty-five percent of film-goers in France said in a survey that they will flock back to the theatres within the next one month. Cine-goers have since long supported the French film industry. Since 1959, France’s National Centre for Cinema has been collecting about 10% tax on ticket prices to fund the industry. This support system has certainly proven to be crucial after the lockdown. When many film industries around the world are struggling to get back on their feet, the French film industry has managed to restart without any job losses due to COVID-19.