With two features under his belt this year thus far, Hong Sangsoo has embarked shooting his next project. While details are sparse, he’s reportedly reunited with Isabelle Huppert, marking their third collaboration after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera. Don’t be surprised to see it turn up as early as Berlinale next year.
We’re now less than two weeks from the Japanese release of Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live?, which is now confirmed to clock in at 2 hours and 4 minutes. Studio Ghibli has decided to take a marketing approach that only a director like Miyazaki could warrant: by not doing much of any marketing at all, with no images or trailers released in promotion. Miyazaki recently exclaimed some hesitation, revealing, “I wonder if it’ll be okay without publicity. I am beginning to worry […] I’m concerned, that’s all.” With a release on July 14 fast approaching, expect more updates as Japanese audiences start to screen it––namely revealing what exactly the plot will be.
Following up Red Rocket, Sean Baker embarked on a secretive project titled Anora and now the first few details have finally arrived with production completed. While at Cinema Jove in Valencia (via World of Reel), the director revealed the film is “an adventure comedy-drama” shot in upstate NY and Las Vegas with a “cleaner ‘70s cinema aesthetic.” With a cast featuring Ivy Wolk and Mikey Madison, Baker added the following:
Anora is the title and no one will be able to really remember the name until they see the movie. After seeing it, it’ll be impossible for them to forget it. It’s my biggest production to date, although that’s not to say it’s too big. It cost a little more than The Florida Project and in terms of theme it follows the line of my previous films. It’s a story about a sex worker, but the tone is closer to comedy.
Last and perhaps least, in a fairly depressing New Yorker article about how Mattel is developing 45 (!) properties for big-screen adaptations, they let slip that Greta Gerwig will be writing and directing two Chronicles of Narnia movies for Netflix. The Barbie director’s agent also chimed in, “Her ambition is not to be the biggest woman director, but a big studio director.” The last cinematic adaptations of the C.S. Lewis series were The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008), and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), and Netflix announced its deal with the C.S. Lewis Company back in 2018.