David Farnor | On 10, Mar 2018

MUBI dedicates the whole of March and April to an epic season celebrating women behind the camera, from the avant-garde’s queen Maya Deren to Hollywood’s Kathryn Bigelow and the inimitable Agnès Varda. Crucial, necessary, remarkable voices, both established and up-and-coming, it’s a season that brings us top Argentine talent, MUBI’s own Baden Baden and, to coincide with You Were Never Really Here hitting UK cinemas, some handpicked Lynne Ramsay favourites.

What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:

 

This week on MUBI

My Friend from the Park – 10th March

Argentine director Ana Katz won the World Cinema Dramatic Screenwriting Award at Sundance in 2016 with this comedy. It follows Liz, who meets Rosa and baby Clarissa at the park. Rosa appears to be as lonely and helpless as she is, while all the other moms cheerfully celebrate the joys of motherhood. So it’s no surprise that Rosa and Clarissa soon become a growing presence in Liz’s life.

Female Filmmakers: No Man’s Land – 12th March

Last summer, MUBI featured the far-flung second film by Salomé Lamas (Eldorado XXI) and are now thrilled to introduce her confrontational debut. A documentary encounter with the presence, history, and memories of an itinerant mercenary, it is an intimate experience at once absorbing and terrifying.

Godard and the Dziga Vertov Group: Wind from the East – 13th March

MUBI continues its Dziga Vertov Group series with this oddball Marxist western playfully set against a pastoral backdrop and featuring Anne Wiazemsky and Gian Maria Volonté. With a propagandist voice-over and characters breaking the fourth wall, Godard and Gorin dismantle the idea of cinema as entertainment.

Lynne Ramsay: The Last Picture Show – 14th March

Lynne Ramsay handpicks this 1971 drama from Peter Bogdanovich: “That feeling of burgeoning awkward teenage sexuality and being stuck in a dead end town is brilliant. Cybill Shepherd undressing on the diving board. Cloris Leachman’s sex scene with Timothy Bottoms, to the sound of the creaking bed, and her emotional explosion at the end really affected me.”

Female Filmmakers: Wasteland No. 1: Ardent, Verdant- 15th March

MUBI showcases American experimental animator Jodie Mack with this structuralist short, a fluttering celluloid juxtaposition of silicon landscapes and printed flowers, organic technology and artificial nature.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

Lynne Ramsay: Meshes of the Afternoon

Lynne Ramsay handpicks Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid’s fantasy short from 1943: “The strange, disturbing atmosphere, the impossible time and space, the hooded figure with mirror face, the dreaming woman at the window who becomes three! I felt like I was in a house of ghosts. As a photographer, I was blown away by its imagination and inspired me to go to film school”.

Thelma

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures while studying at a university in Oslo in Joachim Trier’s fantastic coming-of-age psychological thriller. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable, and often dangerous, supernatural abilities. Disturbing, beautiful and entirely absorbing.

Wulu

MUBI partners with the South London Gallery on South by South, a series of innovative African cinema. Coulibaly’s debut is a gripping tale of ambition that spirals into the crime and drug-trafficking underworld with surprising brio. An exhilarating take on Scarface in the streets of Bamako.

Morvern Callar

Scottish supermarket shelf-filler Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) uses her boyfriend’s inheritance after his suicide to escape from her boring life. Emotionally intense road movie by the director of the prize-winning Ratcatcher.

Seven Psychopaths

Following the modern cult classic In Bruges, Martin McDonagh fully delivered on that film’s vast promise with Seven Psychopaths—a fiery genre cocktail of crime & dark comedy. Not to mention, a perfect cast (Christopher Walken? Check. Tom Waits? Check.) lead this Hollywood set symphony of psychosis. Read our full review

Baden Baden

MUBI celebrates International Women’s Day with Rachel Lang’s indie film, which balances balance of comedy and tragedy to create a unisex heroine for the ages. Read our review.

The King’s Speech

Tom Hooper’s Oscar-winning drama sees Colin Firth’s learn to overcome his stammer with the help of Geoffrey Rush’s therapist. Their chemistry makes this a hugely watchable drama.

On Body and Soul

Subtly moving and brutally raw, Ildikó Enyedi’s first feature since the 90s is a work of strange beauty. Read our full review of On Body and Soul, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2018 Oscars.

The Son of Joseph

With idiosyncratic formal precision and an offbeat sense of humour, Eugène Green’s The Son of Joseph is a unique take on the Nativity story. Read our review.

Captain Phillips

A slice of recent history gets Paul Greengrass’ docu-dramatist sense of immediacy in this breathtaking oceanic bound thriller. A US freighter turns into an apt microcosm for country relations in this unpredictable narrative game of strategy and resilience. Starring the always great Tom Hanks. Read our full review

Moon

Winner of the BAFTA Award for Best Outstanding Debut, Duncan Jones’ sci-fi stars Sam Rockwell and, well, that’s essentially it, as his astronaut remains stuck in isolation on a moon base with only himself for company. A study of identity, humanity and home, this low-budget gem is a modern genre classic. Read our full review.

Special Discovery: Bright Nights

Berlin School veteran Thomas Arslan returns to the German festival’s competition with a majestic yet intimate father-son road movie. A father tries to rekindle his relationship with his son after years of absence and lack of communication. He takes him on a car ride across northern Norway, hoping it is not too late.

Dr. Strangelove

Too soon after Trump winning the 2016 US election? Shut out the alarming plausibility and revel in Peter Sellers’ manic triple-performance in Stanley Kubrick’s wickedly good war satire.

Plants

Amid the responsibility of taking care of her brother who is in a vegetative state, financial problems and the awakening of her sexuality, Florencia becomes obsessed with the comic “The Plants”, which is about the invasion of plant souls into human bodies during a full moon.

Special Discovery: Untitled

“The most beautiful film I could imagine is one which would never come to rest,” said Michael Glawogger of this epic, free-floating documentary project — but malaria struck him down during shooting. Monica Willi, his and Haneke’s editor, crafted the final, global vision, made of extraordinary footage. Read our review

MyFrenchFilmFestival: Swagger

A teen-movie documentary, Swagger carries us in the midst of the astonishing minds of eleven teenagers growing up in one of the most underprivileged neighbourhood in France.

An Education

Carey Mulligan stole a nation’s heart with her superb performance in this coming-of-age drama. which sees young Oxbridge candidate Jenny whisked away into a world of glamorous possibilities by the Peter Sarsgaard’s older man, David. Watch out for a scene-stealing turn by Rosamund Pike. Read our review

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Elio Petri won a much-deserved Best Foreign Film Oscar for this sublimely clever policier with one of cinema’s most ingenious premises: Is there such thing as a man (the great Gian Maria Volontè) so powerful he would never be suspected of guilt? With an unforgettable score by Ennio Morricone.

Going My Way

Leo McCarey’s beloved, mega-hit Bing Crosby film swept the Oscars (Picture, Actor, Director and more) and, in true Hollywood fashion, has a sequel: The heartfelt Bells of St. Mary’s. McCarey’s casual style, with its off-hand mixture of melancholy and comedy, has rarely been more poignant—or moving.

A Film Like Any Other

Famous for his trailblazing films in the French New Wave, Godard controversially re-invented his cinema after the failed revolution of May ’68. MUBI kicks off a new series on his radical films with Jean-Pierre Gorin and under the name Dziga Vertov Group, exploring cinema’s capacity for political engagement and change.

 

A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £5.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Untitled
Available until end of: 10th March

An Education
Available until end of: 11th March

The Lost Weekend
Available until end of: 12th March

Goff in the Dessert
Available until end of: 13th March

D’Annunzio’s Cave
Available until end of: 14th March

Wild at Heart
Available until end of: 15th March

The Constant Factor
Available until end of: 16th March

Wings of Desire
Available until end of: 17th March

Moon
Available until end of: 18th March

 

Add to Watchlist