Albert Serra (Birdsong, Knight’s Honor) is currently at work on a 200-hour film, which he’s shooting during the 100 days of dOCUMENTA 13 (June 9 through September 16). Documenta is, of course, one of the art world’s major events, occurring only once every five years in Kassel in Germany. As Sergio Ríos Pérez reports at Cineuropa, Serra’s screening each day’s work every evening and the completed flm is entitled The Three Little Pigs, “in ironic reference to three very relevant moments in the construction of Europe as incarnated by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Adolf Hitler, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.” Related viewing (1’03”). Serra in Kassel on Surrealism.
Book. Film Unframed: A History of Austrian Avant-Garde Cinema, edited by Peter Tscherkassky, is now out from the Austrian Film Museum (and distributed internationally by Columbia University Press), and Jonathan Rosenbaum‘s posted his contribution, “Lisl Ponger’s Cinema: The Lessons of Ignorance.”
More reading. With the BFI’s multi-event extravaganza, The Genius of Hitchcock, on through October, the Observer has asked half a dozen writers for pieces on their favorites: A.L. Kennedy on The 39 Steps (1935), Jonathan Coe on The Lady Vanishes (1938), Bidisha on Rebecca (1940), Frank Cottrell Boyce on Notorious (1946), Philip Hensher on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Geoff Dyer on The Birds (1963). And for Sight & Sound, Claire Smith has a brief piece on award-winning costume designer Julie Harris, who worked on Frenzy (1972).
In the New York Times, Dave Kehr reviews a couple of new releases on DVD and Blu-ray (Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch [1984] and Jack Arnold’s The Space Children [1958]) and Yoni Brenner blurbs a few films playing this week at Film Forum—in an alternate universe. Example: “The Terrible Elbows (1965, Georges Millefeux) Determined to improve his station, Claude LeFevre—a heavy-lidded pickpocket from the wrong side of the tracks—hatches a reckless plot to seize the tracks and move them 200 yards to the right….”
In other news. Yorgos Lanthimos‘s Alps has won the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival, reports Guy Lodge at In Contention. “Another Competition contender, and certainly the film about which I heard the most chatter from Sydney, was Lore—the long-long-awaited sophomore feature from Australian director Cate Shortland, whose slinkily brilliant 2004 debut, Somersault, put both Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington on the international map. Reviews for her very different-sounding follow-up—a World War II survival story about five children, separated from their Nazi parents in the last days of the Third Reich, forced to undergo a 500-mile trek to safety—have been uniformly impressed.”
“So, the Northside Festival, having taken over all of Williamsburg’s music venues this past weekend, will now colonize the Nitehawk, UnionDocs and indieScreen for four evenings of film screenings,” notes the L‘s Mark Asch. “Northside Film begins tonight with offerings from our DIY Film Competition and our many and varied curatorial partners.”
Silverdocs opens tonight in Silver Spring, Maryland, and runs through Sunday.
Besides this week’s “Underground Film Links,” Mike Everleth has the lineup for the San Antonio Film Festival, opening today and running through Sunday.
In the works. Liv Ullmann is hoping to direct Michelle Williams in an adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, reports Simon Dang at the Playlist.
Sam Mendes will direct a musical based on Raold Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a book by David Greig and new songs from Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, reports Broadwayworld. Following a preview period, the show will open at the London Palladium in June 2013. Related: Behind-the-scenes photos from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) at Dangerous Minds.
Milestones. Isabella Rossellini is 60 today and, marking the day, This Must Be the Place quotes Guy Maddin: “Just meeting her, I learned how many things she can be simultaneously—a wide-eyed little girl with daddy issues and a well-traveled super-sophisticate, and then she’s unbelievably raunchy at times. I think it comes down to her belief that it’s important for her to be as honest as she can be.” And the tumblr follows up with a quote from Rossellini herself.
And Paul McCartney turns 70 today. The Guardian‘s put up an interactive microsite, Time‘s running an excerpt from James Kaplan‘s book, Paul McCartney: The Legend Rocks On, LIFE‘s posted a batch of photos, and chained and perfumed has a nice little collection of photos and links.
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